


Solitude is the Soil in Which Genius is Planted

by Dangersocks



Series: The Whispering Forest [1]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Other, Post-Episode: e025 One Year Later, Tentacle Sex, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-23
Updated: 2013-09-27
Packaged: 2017-12-27 10:12:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/977540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dangersocks/pseuds/Dangersocks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Solitude is the soil in which genius is planted, creativity grows, and legends bloom; faith in oneself is the rain that cultivates a hero to endure the storm, and bare the genesis of a new world, a new Forest.<br/>-White Mountain, Mike Norton</p><p>Carlos goes to the Whispering Forest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a complete project that is being uploaded as it is properly edited. This is the longest thing I have ever written and features my first attempt at pr0n. I would like to thank the following Tumblr users for their support and proof-reading: Kayisdreaming; Thetallesthobbit; Kveylet-quarante-deux. Dashilary is wonderful for putting up with me most hours of the day as I talk about this. Additional love to AO3's own Miyamashi for further fixes. (Kveylet again for more detailed changes.)
> 
> And naturally, this is for Jessica. She agreed to be the Carlos to my Cecil one day after I started writing this story. She has also been its biggest fan. Thanks!

Carlos goes to the Whispering Forest.

He picks an afternoon to go there and it turns out to be a cloudy one. There is no consistency to the sky. It is just a grey slate that reflects off of the van’s windshield as he hops out of the front seat and walks around the vehicle. It is one his team of scientists use. There are two other automobiles parked outside of the piney woods, but their owners are gone. Carlos only recognizes the one truck from various places around town.

From what he has heard, Carlos doesn’t think that their owners will return. The Forest quietly grows, while Night Vale’s population thins. It is likely that someone from the car lot will come by at the end of the week to collect the abandoned vehicles. Carlos pats his van sportingly before crunching across gravel and sand to unload the equipment from the back.

There is a cooler full of plastic jars with sealable lids neatly stacked inside. He unzips it and starts unloading the jars into a shoulder bag. He has left his voice recorder in the shoulder bag and he double-checks the batteries before transferring it to the most accessible pocket of his lab coat. Writing utensils are once again illegal so he relies on cassette tapes. It’s a bit outdated but more economical. For some reason, the desk at the lab seems to produce blank tapes every morning. He will find out how and why someday, but the free supplies have yet to backfire on Carlos and his team so he is not hard-pressed to question them.

He pulls out the gaudy yellow safety suit and then decides against it. While the sun is behind a veil, it is still a hot day. He is happy with the security his boots give instead of his usual converse shoes, and they are soon joined by two pairs of latex gloves, a standard face mask and goggles. It’s probably overkill.

Probably.

Carlos slings the shoulder bag on and shuts the back of the van. The slamming door echoes strangely against the wall of trees. The boots are heavier than what he is used to and he lifts one foot and then the other experimentally. It feels as if he is an astronaut and Carlos revels in the thought. To walk on the surface of the moon is an experience Carlos has imagined since childhood. He doubts that he could ever get Cecil to appreciate that profession. Carlos is long past using diagrams to try to explain the moon to Cecil.

He shakes his head as he marches towards the treeline. His goggles have a scratch over the left eye from Street Cleaning Day, the mask makes his breathing sound harsh and he probably looks ridiculous.

Carlos stops an estimated hundred yards and sighs. It is quiet. Nothing stirs in the air. His team is probably at the house that does not exist. Cecil is probably sleeping, what with his show a few hours away. The Whispering Forest is waiting to be explored. Carlos draws out his recorder and starts to talk.

“It is Tuesday, September the fourth and approximately four o’clock in the afternoon...probably. I’m approaching the Whispering Forest. There are two unmanned vehicles in park and no sign of their drivers. Theory is that these individuals are now part of the Forest. The plan is to converse with the Forest, collect samples and return them to the lab for analysis. Reports indicate that I may experience a relieving of tension and an invitation to join the Forest. I will narrate what I can throughout the process.”

His voice sounds strange with the mask on. Upon reviewing his thoughts and finding himself happy with them, Carlos approaches the first of the pine trees in his comically heavy boots.

He expects the Forest to greet him, and it does not disappoint. “Carlos,” it says in a sourceless tone that emanates from the ground. “We love what you’ve done with your hair.”

Immediately, Carlos chokes back a laugh. The voice sounds exactly like Cecil’s impression of it: high-pitched and kind of whining. He holds the recorder further out.

“Hello, uh, Whispering Forest.”

“You are a really good scientist, Carlos. Hello,” the Forest says back.

Carlos is grinning, amused. He stops the recorder and then rewinds it to replay this exchange. He is satisfied when he can hear the Forest. Sometimes the recorder doesn’t catch all of the noises in and around Night Vale. Satisfied, he returns the tape to where he stopped and resumes recording.

“The source of the voice comes from the ground somewhere. The Forest is aware of who I am without introduction. Sounds sincere, and yet a little desperate. Uh…”

He pauses before stepping passed the first of the pines. “I am now in the Whispering Forest. Forest: it’s good that you’ve noticed that I’m a scientist.”

“Of course you’re a scientist. You’re so smart, Carlos.”

Carlos nods, subconsciously chewing his lower lip. “Thank you. I mean that. I’m here for science, it’s why I’ve come to visit. Uh, I hope you don’t mind me talking in third-person sometimes.”

“We think it’s lovely when you talk,” the Forest answers.

He feels a noticeable sense of relief when the Whispering Forest implies that it does not mind his presence here. Sometimes being a scientist involves being unattached or clinical but Carlos doesn’t want to seem rude or amoral. An actual physical weight seems to lighten from his shoulders and he speaks into his recorder: “The Whispering Forest is welcoming. I feel welcome here. That’s good. I’ll continue talking. There are about seven acres of pine trees now outside of Night Vale, though we do not have an adequate count of how much it has grown since the Forest’s inception. More time and monitoring will be required to graph and track the daily growth. I can see several varieties of what we call the _Pinus_ genus.”

He reaches up to adjust his goggles to better see past the scratch on the left side. Carlos squints at the boughs of a tree close to him. “I would like to brush up on my knowledge of subgenera. Based on the cones, leaves, and seed samples, I hope to categorize just how many kinds of trees are here. Forest, do you understand this?”

The bough Carlos is inspecting brushes across his brow. It startles him and he takes one step back.

The Forest answers, “You are looking at how unique we are.”

“Uh, yes,” Carlos says, awkwardly rebalancing in his boots and under all of the equipment.

“No one is as unique as you, Carlos.” The branch reaches, but Carlos is too far away now. He shifts so he can meet the branch with his gloved fingers.

It’s like shaking someone’s hand. He has made a new friend and is smiling wider now, despite himself. “Thank you, Forest. That’s very kind.”

He can’t remember what he had been looking for. Carlos holds the prickly bough with his latex hands and wonders what it would feel like on his skin. He is still holding the voice recorder. Realizing this brings him out of the thought and back to task.

“Uh, I -- right, the classification of the pinus species is one such goal for my report. Um, reason for being present here...in the Whispering Forest. If I may,” he lets go of the branch and glances up at the tree. “I would like to collect some samples. If I am intruding or about to do something you don’t like, Forest, please inform me of this and I will stop.”

“You are so considerate, Carlos.”

He beams, glad that someone had finally noticed. He takes care to be considerate. He calls in a lot of potential threats to Cecil’s shows. He is not sure of how many of his warnings go out on the air, or how useful they are, but Carlos _tries_ , dammit. He cares for Night Vale. He cares for her people. He cares for this Forest.

Adjusting his goggles again, Carlos turns and looks around at the needle-strewn floor. The light comes through without a canopy to block it, and Carlos can barely see the boundary of the Whispering Forest through the surrounding trees. If he were to shift a little to the left, he just might spot the red abandoned car through an opening.

There is silence as Carlos picks his way deeper into the woods. He moves slowly, observing everything. He pauses the recorder to conserve space on the tape. He finds a few pine cones of different shapes and carefully puts them into beakers that have different coloured lids. He is not allowed to label them. Carlos stoops to brush the fallen pine needles on the floor aside and tries to guess at how far down the Forest’s floor goes before it is replaced by the sandy, original desert beneath. Is there sandy desert beneath? The needles are much deeper than they look, with rich earthy soil hiding below. He takes a sample. Carlos realizes that he hasn’t seen any possessions or materials from other humans here. He has been subconsciously expecting them, yet there is nothing but the pine trees.

He likes being here. He likes the quiet and the space to ask himself questions. There is a contentment that Carlos is not sure he has felt before that settles in his chest and slowly spreads.

He has been reading up on what material he can find regarding pines. The Bristlecone pine (family Pinaceae, genus _Pinus_ , subsection _Balfourianae_ ) is theorized to be one of the oldest living organisms on the planet, though nobody has successfully proven it. Carlos could be the first.

He stares aimlessly for a moment, ignoring the scratches that obscure his vision of this beautiful place. These trees could live five thousand years. What things could he ponder and explore in that amount of time? Would that time move slower in and around Night Vale? The thought doesn’t frighten him. His mind wanders back to the lack of human clothing. How does this place transform a person into the Forest? Compost, he wonders? Were all the trees once people? What would the transformation look like as it happened? What would that feel like?

The branches around are not moved by the wind. They lean towards the lone scientist. He draws back to himself, realizing that he had thought of a lot of good things yet he had not recorded any of it.

The moment Carlos presses his thumb down on the recorder, the Forest speaks.

“Your lab coat sure is white today,” it offers.

Carlos glances up and nods. “It’s apparent that you can see me, and that you’re also able to differentiate colours.”

“You are very noticeable,” answers the Forest. “We could watch you all day.”

The wash of relief is felt again. Science is Carlos’ passion and being appreciated for it is nice. It _is_ very nice not having to compete between observing something and being sociable.  Carlos senses a slight blush from under his face mask. He gets this kind of attention from Cecil constantly, but --

He remembers to narrate his observations. He should do that. “Uh, I’m...flattered. Being -- I guess I’m appreciating the attention. It’s...distracting. Though it’s also...good?”

Dictating this out loud is harder than it should be. Carlos endeavours to focus.

“I’d like to take a sample, if I could, of your bark.” Carlos explains to the trees. “Would that harm you? Are different trees of different compositions? Are...all of you people? Or just some?”

“You are very good at questions. And you’re so dedicated, Carlos. You’re the first scientist we’ve had with us, and you’re all by yourself.”

If his feet weren’t so heavy, Carlos would expect his response to be scuffing at the ground bashfully. “I am pretty self-reliant,” he says instead, proud of how casual the words come out.

“That is exactly right, Carlos. You are. You are very self-reliant.” The Forest’s use of upper-inflections to end its sentences ceases here.

Carlos ponders the change in the Forest’s tone as he singles out a tree. He puts his recorder, still recording, into his pocket and retrieves a small chisel from his shoulder bag. The bark glistens faintly and is layered as one would expect it to be. Even with the mask on, the scent is very piney. Carlos’ hands push on the textured bark as he leans close to inspect it before cutting a piece away.

He is about to ask the Forest -- or perhaps just this particular tree -- if it can feel him touching it when the Forest hums, “Carlos, you are very independent. You are perfect.”

The skin on Carlos’ back tingles and he stops. He has lived in Night Vale for over a year and has learned to recognize the feeling. Something has changed in the Forest’s voice. Carlos tries to identify it, still braced on the tree with his two layers of latex gloves and his goggles and massive boots with chisel in hand. Sometimes it is best to have a weapon or an escape route when this feeling occurs. This has saved him before.

It is in the “perfect”. Everyone in Night Vale calls Carlos perfect. He has grown used to it, even bored with it sometimes. It’s cute coming from Cecil. From the Whispering Forest, though...

Silence hangs dead in the air. No explanations regarding the uneasy sensation are forthcoming. Carlos drags his left thumb in a caress along the skin of the tree he holds. He tells himself that it is to reassure the pine though the unsettling feeling remains. Carlos directs his eyes back to task. Holding the tree he cuts down with the chisel into the flesh of the bark.

The chisel does not stop where Carlos expects it to, pushing through. The ground lurches immediately and Carlos chokes back a surprised cry as he’s pulled into a sinking floor. Blood leaks from the tree and for a heart stopping moment Carlos thinks he’s missed his mark and cut into his own hand. There’s no pain and he has to shake his head to make sure his goggles aren’t obscuring his vision. The chisel is in the tree and under his hand it has met no resistance. It should feel like metal against wood, but there is something softer and more yielding there. Carlos is stuck, boots in the earth up to the ankles.

So much blood. So little screaming for so much blood.

He releases the chisel and draws back from the wound in the tree. The tool stays fixed and the blood slides down with a texture like syrup, oozing into cracks and paths in the tree bark. He expects noise or sirens or howls of pain but only hears a hollow lack of sound in his ears. The sinking feeling continues and Carlos looks down. The pine needles have opened into two holes. These are what are swallowing him.

He should breathe.

“Stop. No, I don’t want to be a part of you!” Carlos shouts. He resists the urge to reach out and grasp the wounded tree to fix him in place. His knees are almost under. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“We’re not hurt, Carlos. You could never hurt us. We think you’re perfect,” the Forest sings cheerfully.

Carlos’ team had covered sink holes in the desert, one day. He tries to remember his training. He fights with his legs, keeping his gloved hands -- one bloody, so much blood -- above his waist. It’s hard with the heavy boots, stepping and churning. He’s going to overtire before he gets free.

The Forest keeps talking. “You’re still very new to town, like us, Carlos. We understand. It must be very hard to be so self-reliant.”

“Yes, please, whatever!” shouts the struggling scientist. He feels very warm in his coat flushing from his exertions. “Please, let me go!”

“We can help you, Carlos. You don’t have to be so lonely.”

“I’m not...I’m --” he fights the urge to push on the ground with his hands. They’d be caught too. The blood on the bark continues to ooze a trail down. He sees it from his peripherals. “I’ve got Cecil!”

The ground does not give. The tree creaks and Carlos feels a brush from a branch straining to reach him. It’s in his hair. It is not calming. “You do have Cecil. How nice that is! Cecil has really good taste, Carlos. We hope you know that.”

“You’re not listening to me,” Carlos wails. “Please let me go.”

“We really appreciate you, Carlos. No one appreciates you like we do.”

Carlos feels a slight give with his right foot and pulls with tired thighs. At last the ground releases that foot and Carlos topples backwards, catching himself on his side with his left boot still buried. He splays, sending the top layer of dried pine needles scattering. He draws his heavy right foot towards him for leverage and that is when something pulls at his right shoulder. He feels the fabric tighten.

The angle of the goggles don’t let him see that way. Then, there’s pressure on his shoulder. Carlos jerks and reaches around with his left hand and feels a gnarled root. He slaps at it and it curls, malleable yet rough, into his palm with an encouraging squeeze.

He yells, the sound coming unhinged in his throat.

There’s no room in his head to think on the nature of pine trees and their roots. He sees an image of a person being pulled into the ground and being pinned, trapped. Transforming. He sees blood, so much blood. The hardwood floor at the bowling alley could be pine. They are people, all of them. Are there teeth below the Forest’s surface? Will his teeth join theirs? He yells again and can’t work words into pleading or screaming sense. The Forest is still talking and the discourse is only background noise.

The root holding his hand gives a tug that might be playful as Carlos attempts to jerk away. His arm is pinned across him and he’s still stuck with one leg in the earth. His knee joint is not designed to allow him to thrash like this. Wild eyed, Carlos tests his leverage with his free boot and finds the other leg tight but not vice-like in the encompassing earth. Surely he can think his way through this.

He’s breathing quickly. The mask over his mouth is skewed. The smell is everywhere -- pine and earth and something else. Is that the blood? He’s sorry for cutting the tree. _He’s sorry, he’s sorry, he’s sorry!_

With a final push, he finds his left leg loosened as well. It’s very hard to lift it. Carlos tries to roll one way and the glove on his hand starts to slide off in the grip of the root-hand. There’s resistance so Carlos instinctively changes directions. He rolls over the root, feeling the bark cut into the back of his caught hand as he scrambles without grace to his knees, twisting into his lab coat and shoulder bag. The containers clatter in the bag, the mask is pushed to the side of his jaw and he gasps while the Forest says something about how perfect his teeth are and that it’s so nice now that he’s showing them off.

The Forest is not listening to him. It’s not aware, or it doesn’t care. Carlos is terrified and the Forest is complimenting him. He pulls himself to his full height and the ground sinks slightly under him.

Carlos runs.

With his right hand stinging and his boots weighing him down, Carlos the scientist runs. He picks the direction he’s certain he’s come from and throws himself in that general vicinity. The goggles are disorienting so he reaches up to throw them off. He runs into a tree. The branches curl down as if to embrace him. A stray thought comments that it’s a very nice gesture of this tree, to comfort him in his terror. He feels himself lean forward and then snarls, pushes the tree away with one gloved hand that’s bloody and one hand that’s scratched. The bark is sticky on his scratched hand. Why is he not running?

He runs. He trips. He propels himself forward. He hears the words emanate from his feet with no vibrations. “No one appreciates you like we do.” This becomes the chant that sets his pace.

“No one.” His heart lives in his ears. “Appreciates.” His breathing hurts. “You like.” There’s sweat in his eyes. “We do.” He’s screaming to make the Forest shut up.

“Carlos…” He feels like he’s violating something, as if he’s the one with bad manners. He doesn’t want to leave until he corrects that. He cannot stay here any longer.

Carlos bursts from the treeline, seeing open space like a vacuum that pulls him in. His feet keep moving. The cars are far to the right in his vision but he tears a path in one direction far away from the Whispering Forest. The boots fight him but he’s the one wearing them. His hand burns and his eyes stream. He’s never getting his goggles back. He doesn’t even want them. The ground is a sandy and cracked land and Carlos gets a good two hundred yards before he trips on his own feet and stumbles.

The world tilts and his cheek is hot against baked sand. Everything is too hot and he has no strength to struggle out of his protective layers. They tangle around him. Every breath is far too shallow. Sideways, Carlos can see the buildings that make up Night Vale. Those buildings spin in his vision on an orbit all their own. There is a helicopter far off in the distance immune to the maelstrom. Carlos might throw up.

There is phlegm crowding Carlos’ airway on the back of his tongue. His head continues whirling and he remembers rugby in high school where his coaches would tell him to “walk it off”. Staying on the ground is probably harmful, though the cracked, dry earth is not a maw of pine needles and that’s a good thing. An indeterminate while later, Carlos stiffly rolls himself to his hands and knees and feels dizzy and sick all over again. He feverishly forgoes the removal of his coat and bag in favour of reaching the shelter of the van. The shoulder bag bumps against him and he hears the plastic containers inside rattle against one another. There are pine cones inside of them. He ignores that and thinks about the effort behind moving his feet.

Carlos drifts towards his vehicle, wary now of the large mass of trees. If they start moving towards him on their own, he doesn’t know what he will do. Everything is fuzzy. He can barely feel the inflamed cut on his hand. The heavy boots are difficult to walk in. Carlos doesn’t think of astronauts now.

He gets to the van by passing the two abandoned cars. Their significance now makes him shiver. Numbly, he stops by his ride and in reaching for the door handle Carlos realizes that he is still wearing the bloody glove. He peels it off carefully and flings it away. He checks his scratch with visibly sterile fingers and picks out part of a dried pine needle. It is not very deep. The pain is grounding. His mouth is dry. He opens the door and gingerly climbs in, feeling aches now. He is not as young as he used to be. There is a water bottle in the drink holder, and Carlos unceremoniously tosses the shoulder bag at the passenger seat in order to prioritize drinking from the bottle. He is still thirsty after fumbling with the bottle and drinking the stale contents. Breathing is much closer to normal, now. He dazedly remembers the voice recorder. He pulls it from his pocket and his fingers are clumsy. It is not recording anymore. He doesn’t care and lets it fall back into his pocket.

Carlos remembers that he needs his keys to start the van. They are not in his lab coat.

The world stops. He pats himself down, and then does it again. He pops open the door and looks at the ground in case he has just dropped the keys. His throat constricts. He slams the door shut and stares out of the window at the pines.

He cannot go back.

He trembles. He should call Cecil. It’s...five o’clock now? Maybe there is time before Cecil’s show. Maybe Cecil could have one of his listeners or an intern come and fetch Carlos. Maybe one of the Erikas know how to jack an old, white van…

He’s going to cry.

“Focus,” he breathes. “God, focus Carlos.” And while his voice cracks he trusts that there is a semblance of control he can muster. Self-reliant. He can think of the concept without the Forest’s stupid high-pitched voice feeding it to him. His eyes fall on the shoulder bag.

Carlos snatches it up, flips the top and finds in a side-pocket the keys to the van. They are exactly where he has left them.

“That’s right,” he growls, starting the vehicle and revving it because he likes the control. He is safer in here. The van is a beast when Carlos wants it to be.

Cecil’s radio station plays a half-hour of different people saying “what?” without any context as Carlos drives back to his lab and home in Night Vale. Listening to it is enough to keep Carlos from thinking about the Whispering Forest. He is drained when he pulls over and climbs out, glad for the solidness of concrete. The sky is still pale and formless and it is still hot. Carlos ignores the shoulder bag and his gear and trods to his door as he finally strips the lab coat from his shoulders. The navy blue cotton shirt beneath is sweaty. He plans to drink all of the water and sleep like the dead.

He is numb. The sink runs water and it sounds wonderful. He drinks from a glass and refills. He drinks again. The water is silty today. He is frustrated by how the liquid doesn’t instantly sate the dryness of his tongue or coat his parched lips. The most perfect place in the world would be the bottom of a swimming pool.

Carlos sits at the table with his third glass of water and gingerly unlaces his boots. He will clean up the dirt he has tracked in later. It is nice to have his feet free. His socks are soaked. They don’t smell, though. It is irritating that the little blessings are sometimes so useless.

He picks up the glass of water and drinks. He inspects his hand and runs it under the tap. Then, he bandages it up with a ready first aid kit. His head hurts. He wants to shower and sleep simultaneously. The lab doubles as an apartment for Carlos. This helps stretch their funding and Carlos has never really separated his work and his living spaces. The other scientists share rooms down the street save for the one who camps out in front of the non-existent house most days. Carlos doesn’t want to deal with them tonight.

They would be loud and none of them would appreciate what he has been through today.

“Nobody would,” he mutters, clenching the cool glass in one hand. He texts a brief, terse message to the team telling them to save their lab work for tomorrow. He turns his phone off so he doesn’t have to read their replies.

He is feeling warm. His hands are shaky. Carlos strips out of his clothes, has a quick shower that would last longer were he not so exhausted, and finally stumbles to his bed. He doesn’t try to turn on the radio like he does every night. What could Cecil report that Carlos wants to know?

“Nothing,” he whispers, and closes his eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

Where do all the clothes go? What happens to the fillings in a person’s teeth? Are there bits of metal deep beneath the earth that were once wedding rings and necklaces? Carlos is naked and buried alive and even here he cannot find those answers. He has been given nothing. He holds his breath because there is soil and it will fill his lungs. He has to preserve himself. He doesn’t want to die but living forever is also terrifying.

There’s no one here. 

What would he give for some company? He has nothing to give.

Carlos is afraid to try moving. If he attempts it and finds that he is paralysed he thinks it could destroy him. He is a body in the earth and his awareness is a curse.

He is alone. Abandoned. There is no one. He is removed from himself. He is no longer a part of the world he has known.

Solitary.

Lonely.

No. 

This isn’t real.

“No!” 

And his mouth doesn’t fill with soil though he knows how it would taste. He is not encased in a tomb-like aperture and he bursts from the ground to a night with no air. A void, where there is earth and Carlos clawing out of it. His torso clears the grave and clumps of it cling to his jaw and brow and rain from his hair in small chunks. He has dirt under his fingernails and he presses them into the ground to pull himself entirely out but his hands stay there. Beneath the surface, he knows the dirt under his nails is pushing the nails free, stripping them from his fingers. He tenses, feeling the loss of the protection they offer -- the nerves exposed to cool soil. It is an alien, unpleasant sensation and it has him holding his breath in disbelief.

This is not happening.

He shifts and jerks, pulling one bare arm out and it drags as if caught. He sees tendrils snaking away from his fingers, barely exposed but _there_. 

“No!” 

And then they are normal again. His hands are his again, though Carlos cannot look and focus on his fingernails. He plants his palms on his head -- safely away from the ground -- and tries to steady himself. When they finally come away they are tangled with dirt and hair. The hair is his. It just falls away from his scalp. He is losing his hair along with his nails. 

He longs for someone to be present. He wants someone to make it better. He thinks that Cecil is going to...well, Carlos doesn’t know what Cecil will do if Carlos’ hair is gone. It is all about the perfect hair, isn’t it? 

And even through the unexpected anger, Carlos knows that Cecil is not here. No one is. He’s alone.

So alone.

Desperate and not trusting his hands anymore, Carlos tries to propel himself up without using them. It doesn’t work. He is meeting resistance. He stares down at his legs and sees them go on much farther than they should. He sees the curve of where they have rooted themselves, spiraling and twisting out from his toes and ankles. His right knee cap is sickeningly disjointed and swollen and trying to move at wrong angles. There is no pain but he can see his body changing if he looks at it. This happens with no feeling so Carlos tries not to acknowledge it. He doesn’t know how he will stand, or where he will go if he could.

There is no one for him here though. He needs to escape.

He drops to one elbow and tries to twist free. He slips deeper into the tomb-shaped hole he had burst from instead. The sound he makes is one of frustration and not-quite resignation. When he stares down, he sees his hips and crotch pooled in dirt. He can feel the soil on his groin and knows that the next thing he will witness will be roots growing from it, small and eagerly exploring the fertile environment Carlos is trapped in.

He doesn’t mean to keep staring. He should look away though it won’t help him. There’s no one coming. There is _no one_ coming. There is no one coming, he’s _all alone_.

Carlos yells. It’s a loud sound that bounces off of the walls of his room. He finds himself clutching a blanket and sweating. He’s hot. He wants to be cool. Soil is cool and…

He swears and throws the sheets aside, looking down at himself. His body is his body, intact and not different. He’s thirsty. There is still faint light seeping into his room from the window so he could not have been unconscious for long. He has no idea what time it is since none of the clocks work.

Carlos leaves his bed and almost loses his fragile composure when he sees the clumps of dirt in the hall. It takes far too long to remember that he has tracked that in with his boots, earlier. He escapes the mess and uses the toilet, looking hard at himself in the mirror. He looks awful. He feels his penis carefully as he urinates. It’s as it should be. A part of him would marvel at how little he urinates despite the many cups of water he’s consumed, but Carlos is far too annoyed to think long about it. He removes the thin bandages on his scratched hand and finds the cut mostly closed. He washes his hands for a long time and then puts on some shorts and a clean lab coat. 

Science will keep his mind off of the dream. The attempt at sleep has at least made it seem as if his time in the Whispering Forest had been a day or two ago. He scoops up the keys from the table and goes outside into the dark-orchid themed dusk to retrieve the shoulder bag and the samples from the van.

Carlos is five steps across the pavement before he realizes that he has left his shoes inside. The cracked concrete is rough on his soles and he blinks in surprise at his toes. Since when does he forget to put on footwear, even for a small task such as retrieving things from the parking lot? He debates on continuing for it is only a small distance and will not take long. He ponders stepping across to where the small lawn is and just feeling the grass under his toes. That’s something Carlos hasn’t done in a very long time.

He is not sure of how long he stands thinking about the grass option, but a crack from a car backfiring or a gunshot from one of the NRA supporters returns Carlos to the present. He breathes in, frowns with thin lips and then marches back inside to put shoes on. The principle is to behave normally. He is a reasonable man. He is just having a really unpleasant day and forgetting his shoes is simply a natural response to it. 

He wants to remove his shoes and wander around barefoot in the lab when he’s accomplished the retrieval of his gear, but even that is out of the question. It’s proper safety to wear footwear in the laboratory. Even if he is alone -- and Carlos is -- he should still set an example.

The lab coat from the afternoon is strung over a desk chair. He pulls the recorder out and finds his computer. The City Council is pretty vague about writing electronically though Carlos could never bother to carry a laptop around. Night Vale tends to destroy those regularly.

“Alright,” Carlos says to himself, stretching his fingers over the keyboard. He finds himself staring at them and their normal shape. His nails are clean and accounted for. “Experiment did not go as planned.”

It is reassuring to be typing. He’s really thirsty again. He ignores that and rewinds the cassette tape. The purple light from the blinds covering his window grows dimmer. Evening has taken Night Vale and Cecil is probably done with his show. Carlos remembers that his boyfriend has meetings with Station Management tonight. Carlos isn’t sure why he’s thinking about Cecil. He should be working.

He starts to play the recording. He hears his voice outlying the goals of the afternoon. He doesn’t laugh at himself. How stupid had he been, going off to the Whispering Forest alone? He had believed he could be immune to the charms of the pine trees. If Larry Leroy could escape because he had cable television to live for, Carlos the Scientist could turn down the allure of the Forest to continue with science. 

He hadn’t even fallen for the charms, Carlos thinks as he scowls and types more viciously. The patter of the keys are cathartic. He likes how his fingers move across practiced patterns and he likes the click of each character. It creates a rhythm. It’s soothing. Carlos had resisted the Forest. He had been very clear in turning the Forest down. He had been polite and he had not been rude and the Forest had ignored him. It had tried to take him by force and perhaps that is why he is so angry about it. He had trusted the Forest. Carlos had trusted the Whispering Forest to be civil and respectable and up until he had attempted to take that sample, the pines had lead him on. The words pour forth and Carlos chews his bottom lip and feels his eyes sting. He had been an idiot, going alone and it had nearly been the end of him. Nobody would have come for him in time. Whatever the hell that drives the Forest had _not_ respected Carlos’ answer or Carlos’ right to answer and he feels violated and vulnerable now because of it. There, that is it, the core of the problem. _Exactly that._

“Carlos,” says the Forest from the voice recorder. “We love what you’ve done with your hair.”

He moves fast enough to surprise himself, grabbing the device and throwing it across the room with a startled, choking yell. The recorder bounces off of the far wall by the window and lands on a table covered in paperwork.

Carlos exhales, stunned at his reaction. And then he hears his own voice speak and he knows that the recorder still works and will continue to play. He knows he cannot stand to hear the Forest’s voice right now and he propels himself out of his chair to retrieve it. 

“You are a really good scientist, Carlos. Hello,” the Forest says. Carlos, in the dim lighting, stumbles over one of the wheely chairs and is grateful for his shoes. He snatches up the recorder and punches it open, silencing it. He’s breathing quickly. His mouth is sandpaper.

Carlos gently puts the recording tool down and finds his hand trembling. He’s not sure if this is from rage or fear. He brings his hands to clasp the openings of his lab coat. He is not a good scientist. He is supposed to be impartial. Analytical. Emotionally removed.

In the kitchen, Carlos pours himself more water from the tap and drinks quickly. He carries his cup back to his laptop. He will take something for sleep and decide in the morning if he wants to follow through with the report. 

He is starting to shut down his computer when he sees the screen for the first time. The word document is full of: “ _I’m alone I’m alone I’m alone I’m alone I’m alone I’m alone I’m alone I’m alone I’m alone I’m alone I’m alone I’m alone I’m alone I’m alone I’m alone I’m alone I’m alone I’m alone I’m alone I’m alone I’m alone I’m alone I’m alone I’m alone…”_

Carlos sets the glass down carefully and then scrolls with his mouse through half a page of the same words repeated. He does not remember typing any of it. He remembers typing viciously, but that had been the report. He stands up to full height and doesn’t remember what he had reported exactly. It should have been about the experiment, obviously, but Carlos’ mind pulls nothing out of how he would have introduced it or set his thoughts or theories in order.

Because it is a good Night Vale practice, Carlos slowly and nonchalantly peers around the room. Sometimes one finds hooded figures or other unexpected guests and that would explain the strange message in his report. Carlos even _hopes_ that he finds some uninvited shape lurking at his peripherals. With a sinking feeling, he knows that he’s alone.

He is. He’s very alone.

“This is stupid,” he whispers. There isn’t anyone present to hear him, though. He shakes his head, frustrated with his behaviour. This is not a subscribed feeling. He knows the difference and those are often much more creative. 

Carlos snaps the lid down on his laptop and wonders if this is a side-effect from refusing and escaping the Whispering Forest. He could be feeling isolation as a ploy to draw him back. Carlos knows deep down that he has no urge to go back there as he stares across the room at the table with the silenced voice recorder. The possibility of ever returning to those trees makes him feel queasy.

He takes a sleep aid that one of his team keeps stocked for her chronic insomnia. He hangs up his lab coat and goes to bed in his shorts. The second attempt should be better.

-

There are no people. There will never be any others. There is ground, and sky. There is growth and time. There are no people. 

Carlos falls, but he will not make a sound.

He comes awake, curled on his side. An immense sense of loneliness fills the room. He swallows and finds himself dry. He doesn’t think he’s slept long at all. He closes his eyes and tells himself that he’s taken a drug and it is supposed to work a certain way. He wills it to work.

He feels himself as an organism with many parts. The body is a wonder of systems, and Carlos imagines how the prescription drug is being processed. How the water he’s had to drink will push it through his system faster. He’s thirsty. He draws on the moisture in the room and from his bed sheets. He can feel it through osmosis. He’ll process it in order to grow. He stretches out, tendrils reaching for cool earth. He doesn’t like his mattress. His nails scratch against the sheets and do not find purchase. He wants to dig. He wants to dig deeper. Everything will taste better if he can only reach deeper. Carlos groans when he doesn’t find what he’s looking for, distantly aware that he’s knocked his pillow over the side of his bed. Sometimes, under his bed, things talk. Carlos waits for a response, but he will never get one.

It makes him sad. The things under his bed have left him too.

He’s lonely. He needs to give voice to that, but he’s stuck in one place and he doesn’t think anyone will come.

Carlos wakes up again with a wet face and a nose that is running. He is uncomfortable and thirsty and part of his bed sheets have been pulled out from where they were tucked in. It is still dark. He clears his throat and puzzles over himself. 

He can remember dreaming. Of wanting to reach out and keep reaching. To connect. He doesn’t understand it. 

With a shaking breath, Carlos sits up and runs a hand through his hair. It is a mess on his head. He doesn’t feel rested. Carlos feels agitated. He gets up for a glass of water.

“This is not working,” he says to himself. If he is doing something like opening the cupboard labeled ‘absolutely no experimental beakers, these are for cooking!’ or pacing, he doesn’t have trembling hands. He should call someone. One of his team could lend him perspective. It’s late -- an unknowable hour -- and yet Carlos knows of one of his scientists suffering from insomnia. She may appreciate the distraction.

He doesn’t want to see her, though. Despite the deep-seated longing for some kind of companionship, Carlos finds that he is angry with her. He can’t remember why. And to explain the events of the previous afternoon and his subsequent unprofessionalism doesn’t make Carlos any more willing to call her or any of his team. 

And then there is Cecil, who would come in a heartbeat despite prior plans or engagements. But since when does Cecil ever listen? _Really_ listen. Carlos is dealing with something very serious and the last thing he needs is an enthusiastic “NEAT!” or Cecil playing with Carlos' hair.

_“No one appreciates you like we do, Carlos.”_

The high, whining voice is uninvited in Carlos’ head and he almost throws the glass into the sink with a snarl. He’s trembling. He reaches instead to turn the faucet back on and replenish himself with water.

He stops, knuckles white on the knob. Since when does he drink so much water?

“This is not working,” he says to himself. He goes to his room and throws on a shirt and the first pair of pants he touches. He doesn’t care if they match. It is hot out so he ignores the lab coat. He grabs his keys and locks the door with plans to go to the Moonlite All-Nite Diner. 

The Diner is the only place open at this hour (publically at least) and the perfect place for people -- which Carlos needs -- and anti-social behaviour, which...Carlos is displaying. And if he is hydrating unnaturally, a part of him wishes to test what would happen if he stops. He cannot sleep, so coffee. Lots and lots of it.

He gets to the end of the walk before he realizes that he has left his shoes inside the house. He circles slowly, absorbing that. His toes are sensitive to the concrete. He wants to stand in the grass.

To keep himself steady Carlos talks to himself quietly as he stands in place, staring at the door to his lab. His voice is calm as it self-dictates but it threatens to crack against each word. “I am experiencing several urges which I do not understand, though I believe there is a reason to them. I have had more water in the last...several hours than should be normal and I have not encountered a need to relieve my bladder of it. I’ve used the facilities once since noticing this and I am suspecting that had been out of habit instead of need. Sensing emotions of isolation and frustration with others, despite there being no triggers or encounters with them. I have spoken with nobody since the Whispering Forest. Possibility of this being related is highly likely. Difficulty in sleeping despite chemical aid. Unconsciously walking around without footwear, and I have a very strong urge to stand in the grass.”

Carlos makes himself breathe. The talking has dried his mouth again. He wants to submit to the grass and see what will happen. He doesn’t. 

“I am afraid,” he admits. The pieces don’t yet fit and Carlos has never himself been an experiment. He really should call someone. “I’m going to go and do the opposite of hydrate,” he says slowly. “I’m going to drink caffeine as a test variable.”

He backtracks to the lab and pulls his shoes on. The act leaves him strangely frustrated at the confinement of his toes. Sitting to lace them up, Carlos reaches around and hugs himself. 

It offers no comfort whatsoever.


	3. Chapter 3

Carlos returns to the night and pointedly does not look at the grass. Now wearing his shoes there should not be any problems with going over and touching the lawn with his hands. He keeps his eyes up at the sky where the clouds remain instead. Mostly, the colour is lead though some of Night Vale is reflected by the clouds in a sick orange or a faint red that might be from Arby’s. In that faint red the sky sometimes glows with faint lights. They are too high up to be fireflies, but they look like fireflies tonight. 

The All-Nite Diner is busy and Carlos wishes it were not. He slips into the door and the artificial light hurts his eyes. There is a Scout meeting and Carlos drifts past the table full of children with soulless eyes. He recognizes You, surprised You’re back in town but he doesn’t want to talk to You tonight. In fact, You are one of the last people Carlos wants to talk to, not that it’s personal. You really shouldn’t take it personally. Like Carlos, You have enough to deal with as it is.

A small booth is open at the back and Carlos slides in while trying to ignore and still observe everything around him. There is a hum of voices, some placeable to people. Other voices probably belong to nothing any of his lab equipment can identify. The table has a small stain which could be molasses despite nothing on the menu containing that. Carlos tries to make out the significance of each detail but he’s mostly developing a headache and an urge for something he cannot properly name.

There are far too many people in the Diner. He’s lonely. He wants nothing to do with these people. They don’t understand how much he has to say to them. He has no appetite but when the waitress approaches Carlos pantomimes half-heartedly that he would like some coffee. No pie today.

She drops her clipboard. There is no paper on it for writing is illegal and this is a respectable establishment. The item clatters loudly on the tile floor. Carlos actually looks up, and then back over the seat to find everyone in the place staring at him.

He stares back.

“They’re serving Scout Master Harlan’s brew tonight, because of the meeting,” someone says when the silence becomes too much. 

Carlos frowns. “Is it strong?”

The waitress drops her clipboard again.

“Strong is okay,” Carlos confirms. 

A child, the smallest at the Scout table, raises his glass at Carlos. The waitress disappears. Activity resumes around the Diner and Carlos settles back into the privacy of his booth, both loving and hating the sudden lack of attention. He feels queasy and his skin wants to crawl. If he doesn’t stare at it, he can imagine bark. With open eyes, he relives the act of cutting into a pine tree to reveal flesh and so much blood. 

A mug is set down and Carlos takes it, feeling the heat against his palms. At least his scratch is gone now. It is as if nothing had ever been there in the first place. 

He wishes the Apache Tracker were still alive. The last time Carlos had felt so out of his depth, it had been that man who had pulled him to safety. The scientist morosely tries the coffee and nearly coughs it up. It is vile and thick and not entirely a liquid. 

Cupping it to his chest, Carlos stares down at the mug incredulously. What taste lingers in his mouth is unpleasant. He should order a water. 

No. No he should not.

Carlos steels himself and tries drinking again. It is difficult but after two additional mouthfuls, he decides that he is not just affected by his condition or need for hydration. Scout Master Harlan has sinister tastes and this beverage is probably dangerous for anyone to drink.

He finishes it. His fingers are buzzing and his stomach curdles. Carlos doesn’t think he can blink. He signals for a second cup. He focuses on breathing to keep his heart rate steady. It spikes strangely in his ear drums. 

This is for science, he thinks, tapping the message out in morse code. Or perhaps it’s more, “I’m alone, I’m alone.” He doesn’t know or care. Carlos has never learned morse code before and somehow he is certain he now knows it. This instant, he could power an engine where two minutes ago he had been self-reflecting and depressed. 

Carlos vibrates in the booth. The door clangs. More people enter. Some leave. One is carried out by hooded figures, screaming. Carlos doesn’t know where he is but he is currently not in a Forest and his isolation seems to hide. Complex equations that Carlos has never needed to use but was forced to learn in school keep coming to him. He should write them down. He doesn’t know how much time passes but the distractions, oh the distractions, they are nice for the moment. A part of him knows there will be a come-down and it will probably be awful. A third cup of Harlan coffee will likely kill him. 

He orders a water. He drinks two glasses. He is relaxing again though it comes with the occasional spasm. Carlos props his head in his hands and realizes that his condition is not going away. He has only delayed it. He doesn’t know what to do.

The door clangs again, carrying with it a voice. The voice. The first and last voice that Carlos wants to hear, though admitting that surprises him.

“...makes perfect sense that they would evolve to have the skin of their environment.”

It’s Cecil.

Jessica, his newest intern answers. “I know you’re trying to compare them to the sandworms --”

“That are made out of sand, because that’s all they have in their environment, thank you!” Cecil interrupts.

“But snow doesn’t exist,” shouts Jessica.

“This is a hypothetical argument, Jess. Penguins don’t exist either but if they did, they’d be made out of snow.”

“Which doesn’t exist.”

“That’s right,” Cecil concludes, slapping the counter to the left of the door. 

Carlos finds himself slinking in his seat, not sure why he wants to avoid his boyfriend. Frustration at his predicament? Shame at how he looks? Are they seriously discrediting the existence of penguins and snow?

“I’m so into science these days,” responds the radio host as they take seats at the bar. “So I think I might count as some authority on how mythical creatures would harvest their surroundings to better suit their needs. And speaking of scientists...”

Carlos stiffens. He doesn’t have to turn to know that he has been seen. 

Cecil practically dances across the Diner and throws himself at Carlos’ table. Carlos hunches protectively over his mug. One of the coffee grounds at the bottom is trying to crawl up the side of the porcelain. It is impeccably important for Carlos to observe this and be undisturbed.

“Carlos!” cheers the radio host. “I would not expect you here at this hour. Would you care to join Jessica and I? We’d love your input.”

“Um, no thank you Cecil,” Carlos murmurs. He doesn’t look up.

“Uh huh,” Cecil chirps. He then shifts awkwardly, perhaps having prepared for acceptance to the invitation and unsure now of what to do. After a long pause, he adds, “it’s about penguins,” as if that could sweeten the deal.

“That’s nice, Cecil. No thank you,” Carlos says, speaking softer. It feels like Carlos is lying through his teeth. He is not lying for he does not want to talk to Cecil now. It is lying because he needs to talk to someone and who better than Cecil? Carlos doesn’t have time to comprehend this. 

Cecil braces himself on the table and leans in, speaking in the same tone. “I could send Jessica on an intern job and you and I could...you know. Talk, and stuff.”

Carlos rubs his eyes with a hand and continues to avoid eye contact. It’s really important right now to do that. “Actually, Cecil. No. I’m good.”

“Uh huh. Certainly,” Cecil says, not at all certain. “Okay.”

Cecil’s shadow falls away and Carlos finds himself vindicated in his prediction that Cecil, too, would not comprehend this thing that Carlos is experiencing. Of course Cecil wouldn’t, Carlos sighs. His boyfriend going and leaving him is as annoying as his boyfriend staying.

Carlos hears intern Jessica announce, “sure thing boss!” from across the Diner and then the door chimes. He shifts to see them leave and instead finds Cecil nose to nose with him. The radio personality is kneeling in the booth seat behind Carlos and he’s staring intently at his boyfriend. 

Jessica has left. Carlos has no idea how Cecil moves so quickly or how he has silently taken up occupancy at a table with people at it. Carlos is far too worn down or transcended by the weird coffee to startle at the intensity or closeness. He frowns instead.

“Something’s different about you,” Cecil observes, squinting. 

“Cecil…” Carlos warns.

Cecil continues to squint. The people in the booth he has invaded are starting to bristle. They might be librarians.

Carlos sighs, defeated and partially disgusted with his helplessness here. “Alright, come join me.”

Cecil gives the potential librarians an apologetic grin before escaping. He settles across from Carlos and plants his hands in front of him, fingers knotted. He is all attention. “Talk.”

“About what?” Carlos asks, defensively glowering.

Cecil doesn’t seem phased. “You look awful, Carlos. I never thought I’d say that, but you look awful. Really, simply awful. Perfectly, perfectly awful.”

Carlos doesn’t know what to do with his hands. One is tapping the side of his seat impatiently. The other scratches along his scalp. Neither are where he wants to put them. He wants to be in the grass, digging. He wants to be outside. 

Cecil is strangely patient. Carlos tests that, shifting. Twisting at a button on his pants. Looking everywhere but at the one across from him. Cecil remains still but present. 

Carlos is being pathetic, he realizes. God, this problem just won’t go away. And if Cecil refuses to…he sighs. He stares at the slightly rumpled vest across from him and says, “I may have done something I shouldn’t have done.”

Cecil straightens right away. Carefully and with practiced caution the radio host glances around and then leans forward to whisper, “You didn’t go to the...dog park, did you?”

Carlos blinks. “No. No, Cecil. I went to the Whispering Forest this afternoon.”

“Oh,” Cecil shifts back, relaxing. “Oh, that’s alright then.”

Carlos says, “No, no it’s not alright, Cecil. It is not. Something happened and I don’t know how to deal with it.”

“Uh huh?”

“That’s all you can say?” Carlos snaps his attention on his boyfriend and finds Cecil watching him with a scrunched up expression. 

“I’m thinking,” Cecil muses, dragging his eyebrows together. “You’re better at thinking than I am. You went to the Whispering Forest, because of...science. And you didn’t become a tree because you are sitting at the table with me, clearly not a tree. Unless things aren’t what they seem, though City Council assured me at the press conference on Superday that we’d have a really real week, so things exist and they look like they’re supposed to look. Why would City Council lie? And if you’d come across something dangerous and new you’d be contacting everyone because you’re so responsible --”

Carlos barks out a laugh drawing attention to their table with its suddenness. Several weapons have been drawn at the Scout table if, peering over Carlos’ shoulder, Cecil’s suddenly wary expression has been properly understood. Carlos doesn’t care. He hasn’t been responsible at all today. Something bad is happening to him and he has brought it on himself through his own stupidity.

The thought sobers him. His eyes sting and he stares at the grounds of coffee trying and failing to escape their mug prison. 

The Diner is so very quiet. His ears burn and he doesn’t want to look up. Something is wrong with him. Something is really, very wrong and Carlos can’t do anything about it. He’s going to lose and he doesn’t even know what he’s fighting.

He wallows in the awkward silence until Cecil quietly offers, “You should come to my apartment.”

“What?” Carlos drags his gaze up. He can’t imagine how awful he looks -- more awful than perfectly awful.

Cecil is hunched down like Carlos and with one hand covering his forehead. His face is strangely unemotional. Distracted, perhaps. The radio host blinks, flicks his attention back to Carlos and repeats himself with more certainty. “You should come to my apartment. Tonight. I might know, uh, what to do.”

Cecil really couldn’t know, Carlos thinks. He doesn’t want to go with Cecil. He just wants to go outside. He tries to peg down where he’s being pulled like a compass needle but it just says outside. The grass in a park. Someone’s yard. Not Cecil’s apartment and certainly not the Whispering Forest. The thought that he is not being driven to that place doesn’t comfort Carlos.

He doesn’t think anything can comfort him. God, he’s tired.

“Cecil…”

“Trust me,” Cecil interrupts. “Call it an experiment, if that helps. I have a theory. It can’t hurt.”

No, it can. Because...because...Carlos recognizes that his arguments are not rational anymore.

“Okay, Cecil. Fine. Whatever.”

Cecil frowns where Carlos would expect some kind of triumph. They have been dating for several months and have yet to take personal time together in one another’s work and living spaces. The acceptance to the invitation should be a noteworthy accomplishment for the radio personality -- reluctantly made or not.

Carlos slides out of the booth and realizes that he has not thought to bring his wallet. Before he can hope that this is one of those “mysterious payment” days which usually leave him so uncomfortable, he sees that Cecil is settling the bill. 

The Scout troop has no reflections in the glass doors as Carlos pushes them open. The night air is wonderful. How could he have not realized this on his walk to the Diner? Crickets chirp and a sign buzzes and the humidity has lessened. The dirt gives off a smell that must only happen at night. Carlos should be awake every night if things smell like this. 

He hears Cecil at the door. “Carlos, wait. Your shoes!”

Carlos stops, having drifted into the parking lot. It is gravel and sand, and across the quiet street is a well-manicured yard and picket-fence that has only been partially vandalized from vampire hunters. There is no reason to have moved in this direction and Carlos turns to see Cecil outlined by the artificial light within the Diner, holding up Carlos’ converse trainers.

Carlos looks down at his feet. He doesn’t remember taking his footwear off. He has not even noticed the texture of the ground on his soles until this very moment. He expects Cecil to say something. He waits with some trepidation for a comment on how strange he is behaving.

Cecil silently motions to where he has left his car on the other end of the parking lot. 

Carlos rejoins him, taking his shoes like he is not sure what to do with them. He really can’t remember removing them in the Diner. Why had no one said anything?

Why is Cecil saying nothing?

Carlos wears his confusion in place of the lab coat he is sorely missing now. At least the garment always makes him happy about unanswered questions. 

“I, uh,” he holds the shoes up and tries to fill the silence. “I’ve been forgetting my shoes a lot tonight. I don’t know why.”

“You haven’t slept properly,” Cecil continues. “And you haven’t been pretending to sleep. You drink more water than would be considered normal and you are thinking about grass and lawns as if you are trying to set roots but you will have nothing to do with the Whispering Forest.”

Carlos stares, letting Cecil surpass him. “I didn’t tell you any of that.”

Cecil turns, shifts uncomfortably and finally shrugs. “It’s...hard to explain. I don’t know if I can explain. I sometimes know things. You know, for my job. Kind of how you know things for your job.”

Carlos raises a finger to point out that these are not at all similar, and the action makes Cecil snort. 

“That’s a little more like how you’d react.”

Carlos drops his finger and takes his place again at Cecil’s side. “Do you know, um, what happened in the Forest?”

Cecil chews his lip and inspects the quality of the chain-link fence they are passing. “I have a guess, but I haven’t really looked too hard. I figured it would bother you to do that without permission.”

“Thanks,” Carlos murmurs, experiencing some disappointment with Cecil’s restraint. It leaves the shame and the self-loathing unexpressed and puts the responsibility for speaking of it on Carlos’ shoulders. They’re not very strong shoulders now.

The two linger within sight of Cecil’s small car. They linger with Cecil quiet and Carlos rebuilding himself to a state of functioning. He wants to throw his shoes over the dark, shadowy fence and perhaps run somewhere. Away.

He doesn’t know where he will go. He doesn’t know what Cecil would do. He knows in this instant that he will both love and loathe Cecil for any reaction -- be it a chase or a failure to do so.

Carlos eventually works up the voice to say, “I’m tired.”

Cecil motions to his vehicle with kind eyes and the keys in his hand jingle. 

“Cecil. I’m going crazy and I can’t tell you how. If you can stop this…”

“It’ll be okay,” Cecil promises. “I think I can stop this. And it’ll be okay if I can’t. Don’t worry.”

How can anything be okay? How can anything be okay if Cecil can’t fix this?

Carlos keeps his shoes, hands tight on them as he climbs into the passenger seat. He sets them on his lap and buckles himself in out of habit. The drive is smooth and the lights in the sky drift in and out of cloud cover -- fuzzy. A moth that is the size of a cat flutters angrily at a street light. Carlos drops his head back into the headrest and sighs. 

“Have you ever felt, just, helpless before?” he asks to fill the silence. It is not alleviating to have Cecil so silent.

Cecil’s hands tap the steering wheel impulsively. This won’t be a very long trip. “You have your shoes to hold onto now, and I had your trophy then,” he says as an answer. 

Carlos remembers. “I wasn’t really that scared, then. It just...happened. I’m terrified now.”

Cecil’s lips quirk ruefully. “I’m not really that scared now, so I guess that’s something. Our terror is interchangeable based on these events. And still, it will be alright.”

Carlos lolls his head to inspect the other. He doesn’t understand how Cecil is so calm. He thinks to ask his boyfriend if he would have accepted that very advise while he had been hearing about Carlos under attack in the tiny city. When he sees Cecil, though, Cecil’s face is not the wall of serenity that his voice implies it to be. Carlos would inquire or try to word an observation but talking leaves him dry.

His driver shrugs a shoulder apologetically. “I mean, there are things about this that are troubling. But it’s going to be okay Carlos. You have to know that. And you’ve got me. And if there’s anything you don’t want to do tonight, regarding how I hope to fix this you can always tell me and…”

“It’s fine,” Carlos interrupts. It is a dead monotone of a concession. He stares back out at the lights, done with trying to understand them again. “You’re right. Whatever’s happening to me is just...it’ll happen.”

Cecil stops tapping on the wheel and says nothing more.

It is far too late in the night for Cecil to properly invade Steve Carlsberg’s parking spot. Carlos doesn’t care enough to notice them pulling up by the asphalt path and the side-door instead of the usual lot with the gardens and front entrance. He only acknowledges that they have stopped moving and that their conversation is well and truly dead. 

Cecil exits and lingers on the sidewalk. Carlos catches himself expecting the other to come around and open the door for him. There is an awareness of the distance between them. Tonight, he doesn’t think that Cecil has touched him even once. 

“It’ll be okay,” he mouths, not believing the words enough to voice them. Carlos lets himself out of Cecil’s car.

The apartment is a well maintained one. It has survived at least seven Street Cleaning Days, as the sign in the entrance of the lobby proclaims. Carlos has picked up Cecil here once before and knows that Cecil’s manic writing covers many of the paper notices. Anytime City Council advocates the use of written word it is likely that Cecil uses the opportunity to politely inform his fellow tenants about shared living space etiquette or changes to garbage pick-up procedures. Carlos stares at his bare feet on the ugly carpet instead of reading the strange notes. Cecil maintains a presence three steps ahead of Carlos on the stairwell.

The soundlessness of the building is not unlike that of a vault. If Carlos reaches out he knows he can take Cecil’s hand on the bannister. The walk to the second floor leaves Carlos with a slight sense of vertigo. He doesn’t look back.

New symptom, he thinks to himself. He’s thirsty. They can visit the sink when they get in. It takes forever.

Cecil is meticulous in picking out the proper key to his door. He moves very slowly as if exemplifying Carlos’ descriptions of time in Night Vale. Carlos curls his toes and pats his sides uselessly with his arms. He has left his shoes in the car, he realizes. He wants to lie down and burrow. Is this the throw-back from the coffee? If he dreams again he doesn’t know what form they’ll take. He feels the dreams on the peripherals of his subconsciousness. They are growing off of the continued anxiety. He is so tired and yet still wired. Cecil beckons him inside.

The space is dark with Cecil’s hand hovering over the light switch. He apparently changes his mind and it falls away with some hesitation. They are left in shadows from drawn curtains and no moon. 

Carlos doesn’t politely wait near the entrance. He invades the room and takes over the kitchen. There is a glass by the sink that waits for washing. Carlos fills it, deciding that unless Cecil’s been pretending at science there’s likely no residue left in the glass that will kill him. Harlan’s coffee has not killed him…

Cecil is heard in the first room, opening a closet and hauling something with a grunt. By the time Carlos has downed a second cup he hears the drop of something metal on porcelain. It’s unimportant. He only stops consuming water when he hears it -- a bath being drawn. This is a very important sound and it snatches all of Carlos’ attention.

He looks up to see Cecil leaning in the doorway. Under that gaze, Carlos realizes that he should feel shame at his behaviour. This is the first time Carlos has been invited into Cecil’s apartment and he is brashly taking liberties and ignoring his host. Cecil fidgets and behind him the water continues to run. There is a light on behind him. It is the only light in the apartment and the shadows make it hard for Carlos to read Cecil’s face.

“Okay,” the host starts, tapping his index fingers together and not looking at Carlos. “You’re welcome to stay here. I’d like you to. If you’re willing to try my idea we’ll start soon but you can stop it at any point. I don’t want you to feel like this is forcing you and I certainly don’t want you to think that I’m taking advantage of you because I’m not --”

Carlos holds the cup up between them for the sense of security it gives him. His voice is a lot firmer than it has any right to be. “Cecil, stop. It’s fine. You haven’t even told me what you’re planning and --”

Cecil’s hands come up to stop him. “I can’t. I don’t think it works if I fill you in.”

The water continues to run. It fills the awkward pause in their conversation. Carlos finds the sound distracting. He wishes Cecil would get to the point.

“You’re nervous,” Carlos identifies. “I don’t know why you’re so uneasy and it’s not helping.”

Cecil draws his lips tight. He straightens slightly, if not defensively. “And you’ve given up, which is certainly not helping. But if that’s the case, you don’t lose anything by trusting me.”

The accusation is like a slap. Carlos squeezes the glass in his hand and absently wonders what will happen if it breaks. The potential shattering and biting shards do not frighten Carlos, though the broken tension and the destruction of something that belongs to Cecil...there is a wrongness to wanting that.

He belongs to Cecil, too. Carlos nods, once. Twice as he puts the glass back where he found it. “What do I do?”

“Remember, you can stop me at any point if you’re not comfortable.”

Carlos levels Cecil a glance that tries to convey just how perfectly awful he truly feels right now. The guilt is filling in the holes of this mess quite well. “What do I do?”

Appraising, Cecil stares back. With a twitch, he transforms into a being with a purpose. “Strip down. My room is at the end of the hall.” 

Carlos watches Cecil peel away from the wall and return to where the water runs. He follows the directions, passing a bathroom with illumination that hurts Carlos’ eyes. Within, Cecil is stooped over an old, rusted wash basin full of tap water. His sleeves are rolled up and Carlos almost stops to help. It would require closeness.

Carlos would like them to be closer, though a part of him has retained enough reason to suggest that perhaps Cecil himself has instigated the gap between them. For whatever the reason, it still hurts. If Cecil is isolating Carlos too, then Carlos is really, truly alone. He decides to follows Cecil’s instructions instead of thinking about what seems to be a great, inevitable loss.

Carlos follows the carpet to the only bedroom. In the available light he sees a bed and very few of the furnishings. Beside the bed, Carlos unbuttons the shirt he has carelessly pulled on and then slides out of the mismatched pants. 

He faintly wonders if his lack of any embarrassment comes from his curiosity on where this is going, or whether this proves Cecil right -- that Carlos has already stopped caring about end results. When Carlos’ mind stops running in mad circles, something else may come and replace it. 

The possibility rattles Carlos only because he thinks it should.


	4. Chapter 4

Carlos pulls his briefs down and piles them with the clothing in a dark corner by the nightstand. Cecil grunts as he enters, backing in with eyes averted and the washbasin spilling around him. The water looks good and Carlos tries not to think of it. 

Cecil drops the tub unceremoniously at the foot of his bed. He stands up and turns around, eyes downwards.

Carlos swallows because he’s dry again. This is becoming very inconvenient. “It’s okay to look, Cecil.”

In the pale light he thinks he sees Cecil’s face turn purple in a strange mock of someone blushing. Cecil is still a surprising model of self-restraint when he reluctantly brings his eyes up.

“Okay, right, good. I’m going to strip down too and...uh, you should sit on the bed and put your feet in the tub here.”

Carlos watches with some detachment and a frown as Cecil clumsily fumbles at buttons. “What’s the basin for?”

Cecil hesitates before saying, “You want to put your feet in it.”

This is true and Cecil states it with an unthinking assurance.

Carlos eases onto the blankets and lifts his feet into the water with particular care. And...oh. God. It’s _perfect_ and he involuntarily bites his lower lip. He is stunned at how his toes belong in the liquid. The way the water clings to the hairs along his shins is superlatively satisfying. It is halfway up to his knees and any more would be unnecessary and any less would make him worried over how long the liquid will last. He stretches his toes and can only complain that they grind into the metal which isn’t very giving but that is a problem for Carlos to solve later. Right now, the water is the good thing. It is _such a good thing_. He looks up to tell Cecil about how damn good this thing is and finds Cecil standing three feet away with nothing on.

Carlos doesn’t know if he should analyse his boyfriend, undressed before him for the first time or if he should invite Cecil to try the water. Yes, Carlos is worried about conserving it but this is something worth sharing and he should ask what Cecil has done to it to make it so amazing. Brilliant Cecil. Always making things amazing.

Cecil is turned away, watching the doorway disquietly.

Carlos stops. He should say something. This is their first time being unclothed before one another. While Carlos doesn’t really care, perhaps Cecil is abashed by his body. It is hard to tell how pale he is. There is nothing spectacular about his size or curves. His penis is a penis and nothing Carlos hasn’t seen before. It has nothing that makes it unusual or ugly. Carlos is more intrigued by the tattoos that he has only glimpsed rarely from under Cecil’s sleeves. They are usually a fuschia, though they look black in this room. They curve about Cecil’s arms and torso, and over his legs in spiral patterns that must have been designed to look possessive of his body. Cecil stands with his hands casual and yet fingers tapping, at his hips. 

Carlos feels the urge to comfort. “You look nice, Cecil.”

Cecil turns. He doesn’t smile at the compliment. He should, but he does not. Carlos reviews, missing something that might be obvious. 

This doesn’t feel like a lead up to sex. Carlos is not interested in intercourse now that he’s got this tub. He wonders how he’s gotten to this point. A long struggle, Carlos remembers. Cecil is standing too far away. They should share the tub.

“Are you with me?” Cecil asks. 

Carlos blinks. He shifts, sliding his one foot to bump against the wall of the basin. The basin is amazing and Cecil has given it to him.

“Alright,” Cecil speaks as if to himself. “This next part is hard…”

“Is that some sort of innuendo?” Carlos hears himself ask. It’s clever if it is. He says, “You’re so clever Cecil.”

Cecil shifts, not drawing nearer. He might have swallowed. He’s nervous. Carlos should say something to make it better.

Cecil answers first. “Please close your eyes.”

The request is odd, but brooks no room for compromise. Carlos reads nervousness in his boyfriend and grips handfuls of blanket in response. Like a switch has been thrown, he remembers that he is falling through madness, now naked in Cecil’s room and completely and irrationally overjoyed about a tin container full of bathwater. “Cecil…”

“Please,” Cecil repeats with concern etching shadows across his face. “Close your eyes.”

Carlos fights the urge to reassure him. He has to say something nice. Where is that feeling coming from?

“I don’t want to,” Carlos protests with a near-whisper. “If you’re concerned about how you look Cecil, you look fine. You look really good.” He needs to make Cecil see that.

Cecil’s fists clench, still planted on his hips. He is still three feet away. “Carlos, you need to trust me.”

“I do.” The words are out of his mouth before he can think to say them and Carlos won’t take them back as he realizes that they are spoken. 

“Close your eyes.”

Carlos scrunches his toes in and tenses the clutch on the bed sheets. Finally, he acquesques. 

A moment passes with Carlos’ other senses taking more responsibilities. The water is still amazing and cool on his calves. The air is not too warm in the room. It smells like strange carpet and like Cecil. Cecil smells good and Carlos should say something about that. There is silence beyond the soft shift of water and their breathing. Outside, the apocalypse could be happening again and the walls would keep the roar out. Carlos starts to relax. He starts to question the purpose of this. 

“Pretend you’re a tree,” Cecil suddenly instructs.

A spike of panic at the suggestion. Carlos is grateful for the sturdy bottom of the basin now. He tries to ignore the mental image of pine needle floors and being fixed to a grave. Of bleeding out of wounds made by chisels. “What? Cecil, no!”

Cecil shushes him. Judging by the sound, he is still three feet away. Carlos would grasp at him otherwise. A lifeline. Carlos is dutiful in keeping his eyes shut but he shakes his head.

“Not there,” Cecil comforts. “Don’t be a tree there. Just pretend that you’re one here. Imagine it. You’re very smart. Think about it and think about how you want it. Consider it a...thought experiment.”

Thought experiments are familiar territory. They are something Carlos can relate to. He squeezes his eyes tighter and ignores the images that bother him. He thinks of the basin and how good it is. Sturdy, metal and full of the best water. He’s not thirsty right now. He thinks of his toes as roots, but they are human roots this time. He conceptualizes them not growing off in grotesque directions. If they are his roots they would be organized and beautiful. If they tangled, it would be because they would be seeking and discovering. He is a scientist tree. He can be that.

Cecil’s voice cuts in. It doesn’t interrupt so much as complement the thought process. “And your hands seek soil. They know the names of the nutrients and can categorize them lovingly.”

There are the blankets, but Carlos knots his fingers beside his thighs and does not think of the threads. He keeps his nails. He grows them out instead of losing them. They are sensitive and delicate. He loves categorizing.

“They entwine with what’s below, a system of roots and bramble. It’s very old there,” Cecil speaks, as if a guide. He’s good at this. “They weave and fix you in one place until you can’t move, Carlos. You don’t want to move because you’re the first to ever be here.”

Firmly pressing his eyelids down, Carlos wonders at how curiously accurate the words are to what he envisions. Cecil talks about Carlos’ dreams, but now it feels safer. Or perhaps Carlos is now ready for it. Somehow, Cecil knows this place well enough to describe it.

“How did you --”

“Shhhh,” Cecil coaxes. And that is when something slips across Carlos’ splayed hands -- both of them -- as they dig into the bed. 

He snaps his eyes open on instinct and meets a hand that presses into his face with a gentle firmness. It blocks his sight. The pressure on both of his hands remain. 

“Cecil, what --”

“We can stop,” reminds the radio host. “But _don’t_ look.”

Carlos holds himself still, gathering data. Cecil has moved closer. Carlos cannot explain or identify the weight on his hands though he knows that it is Cecil’s palm that is covering Carlos’ eyes. The weight holding his hands down is not forceful, but it is cool and slick. It is hard to judge what it could be from the insufficient surface area that connects them. Whatever it is, Cecil seems to think their secrecy is conducive to the experiment. 

And as for the mind game, perplexing as it has been, Carlos admits that he doesn’t want to stop it. Playing along has removed the sense of conflict he has been warring with. It overrides his fear. Believing in and analyzing the imagery has been as cathartic as putting his feet in the water.

His eyelashes scrape down Cecil’s palm as Carlos closes his eyes again. Cecil takes it as an answer.

Carlos imagines Cecil nodding before he continues. “They don’t feel like it, but pretend these are branches.”

The things on his hands slide along his skin, thick and once more pressing Carlos’ scratching fingers deeper into the bed sheets. They are too smooth to be part of a tree system. He can feel smaller tendrils manifesting from the main appendage and curling around his knuckles and between his fingers. They do this with a firm pressure that holds and keeps. Carlos wrinkles his brows in uneasy wonder. They leave him confused. He doesn’t have a context for them.

“These are not flexible and they will not let you move.”

Carlos curls his fingers to test this and the grip fights back with equal measure. They are fixed. The entrapping appendages -- whatever they are -- make a soft squelching sound which Carlos catches and then ignores. Cecil has said that these are tree roots and branches. Carlos imagines them rougher, threatening to cut into his skin if he resists any harder. They are not forgiving and they hold his hands down. He will be trapped under them, losing his most useful tools for dexterity. Rendered inert, his hands will not be able to help him defend himself against any other attempts to bind him. 

Carlos’ heart locks in his throat and his breath hitches at the possibility of further entrapment. And yet the bed is soft and Cecil is close and as Carlos slips back to the elements that had so frightened him earlier, he does so now with a panic he _invents_ for himself. A hollow fear coils in his belly and he doesn’t try to run from it. 

It curls a path to his cock which brings a dawning new element to his strange predicament. This is arousing -- he won’t try to think of the reasons why -- and now the branches tying his fingers into place won’t allow him the freedom to do anything about it. He can’t reach his penis unless he fights for it and the thought of struggling against the bonds that he doesn’t believe he can break only encourages the blood flowing into his groin. 

He explains the sound he makes by the strangeness of this turn-on. The groan is not a sound Carlos would ever have imagined himself making, but once it is out he realizes that it is far more expressive than words. 

Everything pauses, including the pressure on Carlos’ hands. They were starting to creep up his wrists. Or perhaps Carlos has been waiting...wanting for that...

“Carlos?” Cecil’s voice is uncertain.

Something breaks. Carlos starts to explain the process in a breathless rush -- taking over the role of his narrator because this can only go one way. “It’s going to pull me down, Cecil. They’re going to get tighter if I fight and I have to fight to get out because I don’t want this. But I don’t get that decision anymore. The earth is going to be too soft and make a shape that’s meant to fit me, Cecil. And the roots here are going to lock around my knees and my elbows and wrap around my torso and wind themselves around and around until I’m left to grow and lose where I am in the system of it.”

The only response Carlos gets at his ramble is a slightly delayed follow-through from the coiling and slick weights binding his wrists. They tighten and warn against struggle. The yield they allow goes ignored. Carlos knows that they will cut him with their gnarled strength. And they slither up to the soft muscles of Carlos’ upper arms -- now one climbing the side of the basin and tentatively bringing Carlos’ knees to knock against one another. When the sensitive skin between his ribs makes contact with an extension of the tree holding him down, Carlos flinches while still rambling. Its presence, snaking across his body and fighting against the hair on his chest, showcases how warm he is in comparison. His skin is hot and the rubbery -- no -- the _stiff_ corded limbs channel the chill of deep earth and raises goosebumps that shiver across Carlos’ skin. The scars from the tiny town are faint and invisible in the dark and are noticeably untouched by the wooded ties though Carlos cannot think long on that. The nerves closer to his groin react to the cold invasion and increasingly demand his focus. 

His penis is untouched and it is not a mercy. He squirms and thinks on how to talk to make the roots comply with that problem. They’ve listened thus far and…

Carlos, still blind, realizes that he is enjoying this. The water is amazing and even being constrained seems to work for him. Is this the lack of responsibility? Is it that Carlos cannot be trusted to run his own life and self-reliant... _self-reliance_ is just asking for something bigger and better to come along and…

No, his head shakes. This is not at all who he is.

And yet he is still voicing the opposite in an overtired murmur. He is saying that the roots around him are splitting smaller feelers now and pressing into his skin. It happens -- more pliable and slippery than they should be though this is underground and it makes sense for moisture to produce some level of slime. His nipples are hard and are not being touched and his monologue loses itself in a whine for a second before he reclaims the thought he’s trying to express. Carlos transitions to talk about how his head will be turned. Pulled back by branchey hands under his chin and this too happens. The side of his jaw strains as he swallows and talks and the forced exposure of his throat leaves him quivering. Parts of him -- vital parts of him -- feel so open while the rest are closed off in restraints. 

He tries a twitch or a slight thrust and it is clumsily attempted. The basin fails to move as he pushes with his feet. His cock hurts and everything is still good.

He’s losing. He should be fighting, but he is losing. The terror is absent and the pleasure -- coming, somewhere, tangible though Carlos can’t do anything to touch it -- oh, the pleasure that waits to happen. This is good. This is worth losing himself for. 

Is he leaking? He can’t see because he has promised to not look and it is dark in this prison and his head is forced back. There is now no way to narrow down any particular sensation happening at Carlos’ groin. There is not enough happening down there and when his mouth stops running about weight of soil (tightening at his chest, compressing like a hug that is a little too unwelcome) and press of his head (clawing roots playing with his hair, no fears of it falling out) he will ask the trees to --

The words stop. 

Carlos’ mind strays to a memory of a computer screen, a Diner full of strangers and his own thrashing form isolated in a lone bed and he has a momentary fear that in this room with his eyes closed he has forgotten something important. 

“Are you there?”

The question sounds unlike anything he has said so far. He has been doing the talking which is strange in and of itself and he’d like to stop now.

“I’m here.”

Those words are perfect. They are perfect to hear.

Carlos can’t move but he can place Cecil by the basin and nothing has tried to silence Carlos so he is free to catch his lower lip in his teeth and seethe a ragged breath in relief. The thought of Cecil leaving him…

He doesn’t worry about the roots and branches abandoning him, or his colleagues and neighbours isolating him, but _Cecil_ leaving Carlos...no -- not, no --

He wants to ask Cecil to touch him. He wants to invite the other into the tangle. He needs to share this because alienating Cecil will leave Carlos alone. So _alone._

“I’m so glad you’re here, I’m so glad you’re here, Cecil. I can’t begin to tell you how important you are, being here. And...and when you talk it’s brilliant and you always say the right things and you wear those sweater vests and dismiss impossible things and you talk about more impossible things, Cecil. You don’t know, you don’t know how important you are.” Carlos sucks in a breath -- the action a battle against a thousand tonnes of dirt ready to silence him -- and continues. He shouts as if a void separates them. He bellows about how Cecil’s curt and chipper responses over the telephone make Carlos think of them as school kids, young and in love and stupid. It’s wonderful. And he loves Cecil for how he knows everything about the people in town. The rumours and the way Cecil knows the best qualities of even the most obscure citizen. They listen to him. Everyone listens to Cecil Baldwin and his voice is smooth, velvet and animated at the right moments. Mysterious and coy. Innocent and far too informed. Lovely, perfect Cecil. 

It is frustrating, because Carlos cannot stop talking. He cannot stop the flood of words and surely that should mean something. It should be interrupted by praises or humility from that very voice he is describing. Cecil should touch Carlos and respond and they will be perfect, so perfect together. 

Here. In the dark. Together. 

Cecil does not interrupt and Carlos doesn’t try to open his eyes because...because he cannot bear to look and see the other gone. He keeps talking because the next sentence will be enough to draw an answer out. Then the next. And the next after that...

The trees, the roots, they won’t let him touch himself. He doesn’t try to describe them any more -- how they will snake coiled feelers around his penis and hold and rub and tease at his ass and firmly support his balls -- because he will have to stop talking about Cecil and _that_ sounds like a choice. 

Please...

If his inadequate, clumsy mind fails to come up with new things to call Cecil, he starts to repeat himself. His mouth doesn’t tire. He doesn’t need a drink. He goes on and on, not trying to think about what he needs and where he needs it. He knows he needs Cecil. His eyes hurt with tears. There is no answer. No voice. There is no Cecil touching him.

Please. Please Cecil…

The guilt. Because he has tied himself up and put himself here. Carlos has brought this upon himself. He will eventually choose a tree fucking him over choosing Cecil and he has yet to say the right things -- will never say the right things -- to lure the perfect, beautiful, glorious, clever, wonderful, perfect, precious, awkward, excellent, perfect, divine, perfect, understated, magnificent, adorable, perfect, reassuring, perfect --

Carlos chokes and breaks off the thought in a growl that might be a wail. It keens into a sob and when he jerks his head, eyes clenched and streaming, he fights the roots tangling around his neck but they do not allow him to damage himself. They need him.

“Please,” he whimpers.

And in the broken silence, Cecil says, “You need to talk to me, Carlos.”

This earns a second sound, as wretched and as needful as the first. “I AM! I AM TALKING TO YOU, CECIL.”

“No,” Cecil counters in a tone that is remarkably unaffected. “A lot is being said, but you’re not the one saying it Carlos.”

Carlos starts to argue. Everything he’s told Cecil is true. Cecil is all of these things. He is more than these things. The ramble starts again. Oh God, how can Cecil not know these things? How can Cecil disbelieve him? Carlos tries to push up from the bed and immediately the branches pull him back down. He expects to be strangled but the trees want him to keep talking. 

He wants them to stroke him where they are not. His cock hurts and that hurt fits in his voice. “You have to believe I mean _all of that_ , Cecil.”

“Carlos,” starts dear and glorious Cecil. “I do believe. But that’s not you saying these things. My Carlos is contemplative and often silent. A dozen layers deep in thought and not made of surface clamour. My Carlos doesn’t trust easily because he investigates first. You, who are talking, are not Carlos.”

Trembling, needful, Carlos shakes his head and decides to stare because he doesn’t understand. If he is not Carlos, then who is he?

His eyelids snap open once more but the branches drag Carlos’ head back simultaneously and he is left staring at the black corners of the ceiling. He fights and fails to see Cecil. 

“NO!” he barks. Or perhaps it’s a demand for an explanation, or for Cecil to shut up. He may have screamed “TOUCH ME” or “pleasepleaseplease” or “I KNEW YOU DIDN’T UNDERSTAND!” but for certain he is alone in this, in a room that is also a grave that is also a failing and without an identity and it’s awful. It is _awful._

The roots keeping his fingers locked on the bed squeeze around his knuckles and into the palms of his hands. They are gentle and firm and wood and soft and cool and nice and awful.

Cecil’s voice doesn’t abandon him like it could. “This is difficult, I know. It’s going to be okay. I want you to think like Carlos.”

 _I AM CARLOS_ , thinks Carlos. Because he cannot be anyone else. Stupid, yes. He can be stupid and still be himself. Frustrated and stuck and crazy. 

“What would Carlos tell me?”

The ceiling gives no answers. Carlos squeezes his eyes shut and digs deep. He tries to remember. Suggestions flood his head and all of them he’s already used. Some stand out.

“Cecil, this, this isn’t a -- a personal...” he starts, not sure why he’s stuttering. He is not on the phone. The pressure on his wrists gently tighten. Is this encouragement?

The lights over Arby’s. He can see them clearly. They don’t work in a sentence. White, fake feathers. The scars on his chest, itching as he makes decisions about his future. It is hard to describe and that is not something he can do. Cecil does it better -- putting concepts into words. Beautiful compositions, weaving terrifying truths or mundane moments together into poetry that makes Carlos so glad to have found Night Vale. Carlos has always been jealous.

Maybe he says that out loud.

He hears a sharp intake of breath from above him. Cecil being surprised is perfect. Thinking about Cecil this way makes Carlos fight back another ramble. His teeth rattle and it hurts to keep back the words that aren’t his. He thinks they are his. He agrees with all of them but knows he hasn’t spoken them aloud before.

Why?

They aren’t forbidden. Such words aren’t. Of all the things forbidden in Night Vale, the stupid, ridiculous forbidden things that make no sense…

There is a tear slipping down the side of Carlos’ face. It tickles the sweaty, grimy skin before stopping on a root that probably isn’t a root. The root quivers. Carlos’ mind strains itself trying to identify something unique that is also his own and not something else. 

A calm, distant piece of thought observes that Carlos is probably possessed, or suffering from some kind of Night Vale madness. And this he should have been expected. After all, what kind of place doesn’t believe in mountains or follow the flow of time or censors people for talking about --

“Clouds,” Carlos chokes. 

“Pardon?” Cecil whispers.

“I am Carlos and I am a scientist.”

“Yes,” encourages the voice by his knees. Maybe Cecil is crouching at the basin. 

“And I’m...going to tell you about clouds,” Carlos shudders. He pants and tastes bile or something piney. “And...and how they are formed.”

A pause, before the things binding Carlos’ knees give a tentative squeeze. “Uh, maybe another topic Carlos…”

He laughs at Cecil. He laughs at himself, naked and tied up and insane. His penis is probably standing like a signpost and the worst, dirtiest thing he can do is spout the science of condensation and moisture. And of all the wrong things with this picture, _clouds_ are the forbidden topic!

The water in the basin sloshes and Carlos says in his deepest voice, “Ironically it’s sunlight unhindered by cloud cover that heats up the earth and water.”

Cecil makes a harsh shushing noise and the tendrils surrounding Carlos clasps warningly and for a moment there’s a weight on the bed and a finger, cool, on Carlos’ mouth. 

“I get it,” whispers Cecil urgently. “It’s you. Carlos, watch what you’re saying!”

The ridiculousness of this -- Carlos is losing himself and Cecil is finally panicking -- makes him giggle helplessly. The tears are already in his eyes. He bites blindly at the finger and says, “touch me or I keep talking,” when it jerks away.

“Touch you?”

“ _Dammit_ , Cecil…”

There is indecision and Carlos cannot break his restraints to leap into the other to _make_ the first move or at least demonstrate his demands. 

“This is a very delicate part of --”

He needs Cecil, who is so close, to touch his penis. Carlos needs Cecil to be the limbs holding him down. To make this better. It is with impossible discipline that Carlos is able to put words together. He says, “Heat causes water to evaporate from a liquid state to a vapour…”

It is wrong that Cecil makes the helpless sound. A hand immediately lands on Carlos’ abs, while another clamps over his mouth, wary of teeth.

“You’re awful,” hisses the radio personality.

“This is _your_ experiment,” Carlos whines into Cecil’s palm. “I’m so... _fucking_ hard and...and...FIX IT.”

A thumb carefully strokes Carlos’ chin, grazing through the stubble in a caress. “I didn’t think it would get to this point. You’re not you, though. This isn’t how being here, our -- first time...should have gone…”

When Carlos pushes himself against the tub, trying to pull his body so the hand knows to move closer to -- oh shit, _almost_ there and…"Cecil!”

Cecil’s fingers slide through the patch of dark hair under Carlos’ navel, coming to graze provisionally at the base of Carlos cock and it is _impossible_ for the scientist not to writhe and scream and try to propel himself into the person doing this to him. He is still kept down on the bed but there are no more tree branches holding him. He doesn’t _know or care_ what they are. They deny him access and God help him, it still turns him on.

“I don’t want to take advantage of this,” Cecil warns and all Carlos can hear is the promise that the hand will go away without touching and he will be left alone. He barely hears his partner say the things about how this isn’t Carlos’ fault but also not a good idea and a mistake in Cecil’s judgement and…

“I WILL TELL YOU ABOUT THERMALS AND AIR PARCELS SO HELP ME GOD THE TEMPERATURE OF THE DEW POINT WILL ALWAYS BE SIXTY FAHRENHEIT IF YOU DON’T WANT TO TOUCH MY COCK LET ME GO SO I CAN JACK OFF ALONE!”

He pants and his throat is raw. Before his ultimatum -- wherever that had come from -- can be answered, Carlos frantically adds, “I don’t want to be this close to you and still feeling alone. It’s isolating, Cecil. I don’t know what you’re thinking or what you’re afraid of, but it’s not the same thing I’m afraid of and please, just...just let me believe you’re here with me. It’s not going to be okay if you’re here but not here with me.”

As if in answer, Cecil takes Carlos’ cock in hand and holds it -- really holds it. And the centre of Carlos’ desperate little world shifts. Cecil is that centre as he leans his forehead into Carlos’ brow and breathes in a shaky breath. 

“No, no no no Carlos. You are _not_ alone.”

And a second limb slips beside Cecil’s hand on the cock, firm and very real. They are grounding. Carlos chokes and cries and when he moves his neck Cecil stays with him.

“Sorry,” whispers Cecil in a whir of needful assurances. “I didn’t think, wasn’t sure how to...couldn’t bring myself to without consent but…”

“I want this,” Carlos presses, because he does. Does he? Now he does. It feels as if parts of him are waking up. The slow strokes, a thumb -- no, not a thumb -- on the tip of his cock pinning the scientist into the moment with only vague concern for the later and complete disregard for the past. He tries to angle his head to kiss Cecil but Cecil doesn’t comply. The other shifts so they are still connected by the hard bone from their skulls. 

The refused kiss brings the awful, empty feeling back. The gaping, lonely realization that Carlos is singular and soon to be permanently abandoned. 

“No,” snaps the radio host, pausing in his ministrations and now firmly holding Carlos -- with both right hand and head. “This is _exactly_ what I’m avoiding, Carlos. You’re not alone. You’re never alone.”

Carlos has not spoken of the terrorful, imminent abandonment, and Cecil should not know. Carlos tries to look. To peer across but instead, Cecil drives himself -- his head -- into Carlos and in that instant several things happen.

First, his body is gone.

No, first is the dark. True dark.

Or, first, there is panic. It takes a moment for Carlos to realize that this is not _his_ panic. And the emotion is tinged with regret and necessity and a strange aftertaste of hope. There is an immediate follow-up of wonder, mostly bittersweet. This is a new experience that does not have an end result that is predictable. Carlos finds the experience is probably someone else’s and then, because he is Carlos and a scientist, he turns it into a concept he can manage -- an experiment.

He becomes an observer.

His body is still missing. It is also found.

Or, perhaps just his forehead. It is connected to Cecil’s. He observes something there. Something opening. Something shared. It is touching Carlos’ slick brow, and it is burrowing in. Opening. Expanding and invading and tearing holes in Carlos’ mind.

This does not frighten Carlos. It is not unlike opening a prison. The all-encompassing fear that Carlos knows is his -- in a room, smelling of him -- does not relate to what is happening now. Carlos is afraid of dying or becoming something different. He is afraid of being isolated and unfulfilled. It is not a problem Carlos can fix by himself and therefore he is afraid because relying on others -- even Cecil -- could lead to disappointment or betrayal. And Cecil -- sincere Cecil -- is afraid. That is the panic that Carlos has tasted. Self-preservation and a need for acceptance. It glows like a dying bulb, temporarily overshadowed by needing to prove to Carlos that he is not alone.

Never.

And now, pulled by a demand that is not to be questioned, Carlos finds himself removed from the room and someplace else. 

Someplace...Void. 

He senses It and the singular word is the only way he can understand It. So Inexplicable. He is wary of It. To approach It closer would be to Stop. He is not ready for That, and if he is careful It will not expect him. Yet. 

No, he is here not for Void. 

Carlos is here to understand that solitude and isolation are everywhere. It is crushing in its scope and weight and promise. But understanding that brings shared experiences. Creates connectors between...between...he is not sure what he is looking at. 

Give it a name to better understand? 

Okay: Home.

Night Vale.

Oh.

_Oh._

And there it is. The reassuring blocks of buildings, resembling a sane and planned thing. With lights, dim under the weight of Void. Some stars. The other lights above homes and below Void. He could look closer and know them inside and out. He doesn’t because the Arby’s is open all night and there are people there, numb and filling themselves to stay numb. Carlos can see John Peters, he knows, the farmer. The man is asleep as his television fuzzily plays a repeat of an old Bill Nye episode. Carlos has seen this one before. And by the car lot are the new cars and one is red, as Old Woman Josie sleeps but the Erikas do not. They see him and they stare back and Carlos thinks they’ll say something but then they don’t. Or he is now attracted to the blinking blue light in the mayor’s office. It relates to him and his new ability, but she’s currently whittling a podium into a smaller podium and won’t follow up. He knows the future, it seems. There is soft weeping coming from the dog park but looking makes his nose bleed, wherever his body is, so he skims over it with an odd sense of regret. Carlos thinks he’ll hear the weeping again at some point. Big Rico has many rooms inside his establishment and some have held a great deal of fear. It tastes like the sour tomatoes which Rico serves on Tuesdays. Because he’s so close to his lab, Carlos views it to find a Faceless Old Woman no longer secretly living in his home and she is filling his drawers with blank cassette tapes. She looks like his mother, though Carlos knows he’s mostly forgotten his mother and she’s mostly forgotten him. It doesn’t make him sad though nearby Cecil is weeping. Strange. He could look farther and finally see the Whispering Forest -- free from any emotions that the experience will otherwise bring him. He knows it will be disappointed in him. He will feel nothing for it. There are other things to explore, too, but Carlos knows (without thinking...just...knows) that he is here on borrowed time and he needs to be elsewhere.

He goes where he’s needed most.

The room. It is not properly illuminated by the bathroom light, though Carlos penetrates the darkness with no resistance now. He sees himself, his body with brow still close to Cecil’s. He sees the Eye they share and the scene for what it is. The basin, with his hairy feet wrapped by tentacles -- like the rest of him. They come from Cecil, starting as black lines that fall off of the radio host’s body in two-dimensional shadow-shapes. And then, at will, gain volume and weight and transform into inky limbs that glisten. These tangle around Carlos in a possessive hug. They are Cecil’s. 

The fear from before makes sense. Still unmoved and just a mind logging observations, Carlos recognizes his boyfriend’s hesitation. Cecil has planned other ways to reveal his third Eye and secret appendages. He expects Carlos to leave him or to at least reassess their relationship. 

And yet, to give Carlos access to the Eye -- uncertain of what it will do or show -- is a trust exercise. It risks their relationship. Its only goal is to tell Carlos that Night Vale exists under a terrible Void that could destroy all of anyone’s individual hopes and dreams, and has not done so. That Cecil believes this to be explained by the shared fear of the unknown -- the crushing despair of the coming inevitability of it -- drawing strangers together. A miracle pulling scientists from reputable places and giving them radio hosts and mysteries to coo over and rules to follow. How could such a miracle leave anyone feeling alone and helpless?

How could anything make Cecil think that Carlos will take this gift and then repel the giver? 

Carlos cannot weep. He thinks he would, but his body is below him and unmoving -- slight nose bleed. Still connected by a forehead Eye, Cecil weeps, perhaps for them both. They are not graceful creatures, Carlos observes. There is snot glistening the radio host’s chin and sweat and ichor staining the scientist. There is a penis held carefully and a blood circle scratched into the bottom of the basin and pressed into the carpet. There is a hole in the lawn outside that doesn’t exist yet. It pulls at Carlos faintly like a vacuum or a broken promise.

He cannot move. His time is up. He cannot look further and he cannot even panic that he has somehow become stuck out of his body. Carlos watches Cecil, still stuck to him, and perhaps time has truly slowed to a stop in Night Vale. Frozen, yet weeping. Cecil should be a presence guiding Carlos, out of body. But Cecil has admitted that this is new to him too. An experiment.

Experiments go wrong.

Now what? Carlos thinks.

“Там нет ничего, чтобы бояться.”

It is not spoken but it is said. The Eye turns lazily to See.

“Иди домой.”

Carlos does that, instead.

-

“It’s always a bit weird…I’m going to just...coming down from enlightenment...not think for a little bit...because the fears that come from not knowing…and stop asking questions...mingle in the same space as the confidence of having such a complete knowing…except for one…and so I’m terrified you’re going to leave me...which is why you’re not fucking me senseless...but I also know that you won’t.” 

The conversation takes place using both of their voices, coming from one mouth or the other indiscriminate of whose thoughts are transferred into which words from what mouth. 

They stop. Silence. The Eye still holds them, though it is shutting. Eyelashes tickle two brains and leave a feeling of an oncoming sneeze which threatens to build but never trigger. The only solution is to take their confused mouths and kiss -- open, and hungry and confused and sincerely desperate. 

The sounds that their lips and tongues make are like the sounds of Cecil’s extra appendages. There are no more tree limbs. Carlos doesn’t even know what a tree is anymore. He strains and squirms and the tendrils squeeze but are no longer holding him down. They are simply holding in a slimy cradle of everywhichdirection that squelches like lab gloves and blood. 

When the Eye peels back and slips into Cecil’s forehead, Carlos experiences a feeling of vertigo and draws away from the tongue sharing his mouth to breathe. He is queasy and sticky and his skin is hot and his penis is on fire with uncertain pressure on it. He hurts there, the nerves more agonizing from the time it has taken to get to the point of addressing it. 

“I should probably do something about that,” Cecil hums between soft but unsteady panting. 

Carlos resists the urge to disentangle a wrist to reach down and take care of it himself. He shifts slightly to enwrap his palm around a piece of Cecil-tentacle experimentally. He almost feels like himself again, only vastly uncomfortable in his own skin. The appendage has a rubbery, thick texture and constricts under his fingers. The smallest sound escapes from the back of Cecil’s molars. 

“Please,” Carlos says. His hips move carefully to test the tender-pain at his cock. The water at his feet is now a hinderance. It will slosh everywhere. He doesn’t care. “Please take care of it.”

There’s enough sense in Carlos to grunt a warning when Cecil reaches. It makes the host stall, all jerky motion and awkward entreaties. The man is still terrified of misinterpretation or breaking Carlos or something. The charm is there, but barely. 

“Hands in my hair,” Carlos explains with a gravel voice. “Let your...other parts...do that.”

Mewling should not be so perfect in bed after Eye sharing and unwelcome attempts at possession. 

Cecil braces over Carlos, greedily dragging fingers along Carlos’ scalp as the scientist falls back in relief rather than tension. He longs to categorize all of the feelings. He likes Cecil combing his hair. He is grateful for the careful ministrations of weird limbs on his aching member, sliding slickly up and down and somehow aware of when to ease up and when to push in. It hurts, it hurts less, that’s good, no, yes. Yes. Carlos cannot see the small tendrils departing from those tentacles to tease at the foreskin and writhe in the cooling precum but they feel incredible.

He would kiss Cecil to keep the sounds he’s making a great deal more dignified but the host is on top of him breathing in the smell of his hair and perhaps deliberately provoking the nonsense words Carlos makes. He would bring his hands up to touch Cecil and feel out for Cecil’s cock too because he really does want to reciprocate. The tentacles, though, hold his wrists on the soft, giving sheets. It is not the bondage that had existed before, but rather a firm but tender request to remain still. 

Perhaps a frustrated groan fits in with the roar Carlos feels building. His knees are no longer locked and he pulls one damp foot onto the corner of the bed and feels the other clothed in a constricting hug that tries to hold all of him. He lifts his lower body, a final thrust and he explodes like a new star against a Void that has never once known light. 

He thought he had known. Carlos even thought, with this recent access to Cecil’s Eye, that he _could_ know. But Carlos had never known.

And now, he only knows.


	5. Chapter 5

Carlos comes to with Cecil standing over the bed. There are blankets piled atop of him -- more than he remembers from before. He doesn’t recall losing consciousness but he also doesn’t think he should feel this run down. The bedroom decor he has missed observing in the dark are now revealed in pale, grey daylight that seeps through partially drawn blinds. They give the hovering Cecil a halo of loose fluffy hair and reduce his...tattoos...to a soft, purple shade. 

“Hmmgnm,” Carlos either hums or grunts, shifting carefully under the weight of uncomfortably warm sheets. He is naked.

Cecil stands in pants and continues to watch with an expression of rapture. 

When nothing changes, Carlos drags a hand out and pulls away a patch of bedding. His eyes feel heavy but Carlos still indicates that Cecil should join him through a firm pat on the bed.

“It’s okay?” asks the other. The tentativeness is cute, but only to a point. 

“It’s your bed,” Carlos huffs.

“Uh huh!”

The glow behind Cecil’s pupils can’t be a trick of the light. Pointing out the obvious seems to have ignited some kind of giddy revelation in the other. All presence of the serious and wary Cecil Baldwin from the night before is gone. The other continues to hover and stare reverently. 

The switch back to what might be considered normal is convenient and nothing convenient ever satisfies a scientist. “Get in,” he repeats, stroking the fiber or hair that makes up the basest layer of the bedding and Cecil practically teleports there, folding into the space and wrapping pale legs around Carlos’ hairy shins like a noodle. 

“I didn’t think it would be appropriate,” gushes Carlos’ boyfriend, getting very close now and incredibly inappropriate with personal space. 

Carlos folds into the spaces that remain, cataloging the differences in their body heat and the raised bumps he is feeling where he might imagine the tattoos touching him.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “You helped me last night.”

“Of _course_ I did,” mewls Cecil. “Naturally I _would_. And I will _always_ help, Carlos. If you want.”

The ‘if you want’ is hastily added -- Cecil reassuring their boundaries and his willingness to help when asked and not before. Carlos remembers saying a lot of things he had thought he wanted, last night. His head hurts pondering it, but not in the way forbidden _other_ topics usually provoke migraines or seizures. 

“It was strange,” Carlos describes. Cecil stops burrowing into him suddenly. Carlos quickly adds, “Not you. Or it...them? Your things…”

He hesitates, wishing to be more tactful.

Carlos finds a patch of warm-cold skin on Cecil’s arm and rubs his thumb in a circle there. He means for it to be reassuring where his words are faulty. 

Cecil’s gaze flickers away a moment, literally, before the radio personality slowly pulls the words from where they ought to be in Carlos’ head. “You’re glad I helped, especially as you didn’t know how to fix what was happening to you and you would like to reassure me of your gratefulness while seeking clarification to understand the events that transpired yesterday.”

Carlos gives the chill arm under his warm fingers an encouraging squeeze. Something cold pushes back.

In a tone more of his own, Cecil says, “I had a theory but I wasn’t entirely certain up until the very end.”

“Could you share it?” requests Carlos. He still has no theories of his own. 

Growing bigger under the charge, Cecil explains in a way that possesses all of the facts without needing any of the sources. And Carlos believes. Without paperwork, research or second-opinions, Carlos buys everything that Cecil says. 

“You went into the Whispering Forest, and the Forest decided that you would be a perfect host in helping it expand. It never meant to make you a part of it. Rather, it wished to drive you away in the most polite way it could imagine and plant you elsewhere. It frightened you and by your nature, you removed yourself from the perceived threat. At some point you were infected with spores -- likely through a scratch or something you inhaled. You returned to your lab. From that point on, the spores were at work in your body, requiring you to hydrate and processing out any toxins. You would be repelled by the idea of returning to the Whispering Forest, but perhaps now attracted to the idea of settling in a yard, park or a similarly suitable environment. Unconsciously, you were preparing for your role. You would have eventually succumbed, finding some good earth and letting yourself become a tree.” 

Carlos keeps his eyes open, afraid to start drifting under the casual commentary of his lover. A familiar well of terror creeps somewhere in Carlos’ centre but his weariness and Cecil’s closeness renders the lurking feeling into a manageable thing. Or perhaps it is the nonchalant way that Cecil relives the events. 

“I’d be a tree?” Carlos repeats, uncertain of how he should be responding. Anger is too exhausting. There should be something more to it. “One tree. Singular. How does that help the Forest expand? Is it going to do this now to anyone else who wanders in? Should we be warning people?”

Cecil’s fingers curl at the soft spot behind Carlos’ neck where his hairline begins. It’s soothing and Carlos foregoes the customary sense of responsibility he takes on when the town is seemingly endangered. 

Cecil says, “You recall the overwhelming sense of isolation?”

“Yes,” sighs the scientist. 

“A Forest of One,” continues Cecil. “You’d plant yourself because it would be your only option, and then you would find that even that would leave you feeling incomplete. You’d be lonely and trapped and unable to transform back. It would have been terrifying and time would stretch far longer than anything you knew before.”

Cecil’s fingers are tenderly hooked behind his ears, his voice sonorous and undistressed. Now, a cool weight is settling itself between Carlos and the canopy of blankets atop of them. It is simple to simply listen. His eyes sting and if Carlos shivers it is only because of other stimuli. He is no longer afraid.

It’s nice.

“And why would the Whispering Forest wish to make me miserable?” he whispers.

“Because I would have come,” Cecil whispers back.

Carlos stops breathing. He starts again, only so he can breathe a weak, “pardon?”

Cecil’s eyes are dark, and yet glowing with reflected light and tiny shapes. “You’d call out. You’d be lonely. It would have been awful and tortuous and you’d beg and plead and say anything to anyone who would listen. And Carlos, perfect Carlos, I would hear you. And I would come. And I, too, would be a tree.”

Carlos wants to shake his head, pushing against the fingers threaded behind it. He wants to seize Cecil by the imaginary shirt and shake him, or cling. Carlos wants a lot of things and perhaps sensing this, otherworldly limbs cling around him. They raise bumps on Carlos’ skin and makes his “you _wouldn’t_ ,” a breathless parody of words. 

“No questions asked,” Cecil states with ease. “No hesitation.”

“But…”

The smile that he’s given is wistful. “And then I’d probably bring the others.”

Carlos stares. “Others?”

Everything shrugs with Cecil, including the hidden appendages holding Carlos tight. “The town. I’d know the things to say. I know what each person would need to hear to be convinced. I would call on Night Vale and my listeners would hear and answer. They would come and they would be with us. There’d be growth. We’d spread. A new forest in a new place, because of you, Carlos. _For you_.”

Carlos murmurs around a thick tongue, “that’s…” and can express himself no further.

“Brilliant,” suggests the other. “Actually, it very nearly worked too.”

“And you’re okay with that?!”

Cecil peers at Carlos with sincerity. “I’d be with you. You wouldn’t be lonely. You need to believe me more often Carlos, when I tell you that things _will_ be okay.”

Carlos’ eyes really are burning again, and maybe this time it is the situation and not the stimuli. He decisively inhales through his nose. “And why didn’t it happen that way?”

Something strokes at the stubble at Carlos’ jaw. “Because you were so brave, Carlos. You were very strong and you fought it off longer than anyone else would have. And I had time to figure out what to do and how to create the blood circle wards and distract you into...being you. And I didn’t know if my...Eye would...share with you and I don’t think that will be so effective twice but --”

It is Carlos’ turn to deduce something. “You were worried I’d be troubled by...well…”

If he turns his neck and strains, he can catch the appendage -- thick and inky -- at his shoulder and petting his cheek. A strange thought enters Carlos’ mind, asking him how it might taste. 

Cecil blushes and looks happy and still slightly nervous at the potential-but-nonexistent rejection. 

Carlos murmurs, “I don’t remember...bloodletting last night. At least outside of the nose bleed from Seeing the Dog Park…”

Cecil tuts disapprovingly. 

“But as I have no injuries and what little I know of blood circles...” continues the scientist.

“You want to know if you are still infected,” Cecil finishes the thought. He nuzzles closer, breathing into the hollow of Carlos’ neck. “I finished the rituals right before you woke up. It took some work and I didn’t use blood. There were other...fluids, and those work just as well and sometimes better in the rituals.”

“Other…”

Oh.

“Yeah,” Cecil nods, ears pink and purple in Carlos’ peripheral. “I cleaned you up. You were pretty exhausted. You should probably sleep some more. Reversing a transformation while its starting takes a lot out of anyone.”

Carlos wonders what time it is. He wonders at how long he has slept. He wonders too at the lines under Cecil’s eyes. “Stay with me?”

The returning look is soft. “I can’t, Carlos. I have my show in an hour.”

“You don’t have to go.”

A pause, and then Cecil’s hidden appendages shudder. “No. I do. You know how my bosses are. And apparently intern Jessica hasn’t come in to prep everything so there’s going to be extra work. She’s not usually so irresponsible...”

Nodding, Carlos thinks of the way he’ll feel when Cecil releases him -- with _all_ of his arms.

“I’m self-reliant,” Carlos reminds himself.

There’s pride or something more in Cecil’s gaze. Their noses brush. 

“I’ll leave the radio on, and I’ll come straight home after.”

“I’d like that,” Carlos says. He’s already preparing for the solitude that will come from Cecil’s departure -- a vacuum that will exist, or a soil that will feel barren and unfulfilled. There will remain only Carlos in Cecil’s bed, not a tree but a man still in control of most of his faculties. Still in possession of perfect hair. Probably. 

He will think on these things, and many other things.

He will fall asleep again without realizing it.

He will be listening for a voice.

Good night Carlos. Good night Whispering Forest, too. Good night, Night Vale. 

Good night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it. That is the conclusion to this thing that I wrote. 
> 
> There will be other things in the future. By offering critiques or suggestions for improvement, you ensure that those future things I write will be better. And I guess that's good for you too.
> 
> Thank you very much for reading. So much of this was ground breaking for me and I am still wary and uncertain and afraid of the attention it has received. What are my responsibilities now? Do I have to feed all of you? (But seriously, you're all wonderful and thank you again.)


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